“The Red Death”
I. Introduction:
The neighborhoods of Aleppo Province, which is under the control of the armed opposition factions, witnessed daily bombardment by Syrian and Russian forces, and that one day after the declaration of the supreme body to postpone their participation in the Geneva negotiations held on the 19th of last April.
Many political declarations contributed in saying that the presence of the “Al Nosra” in Aleppo had contributed to the increase of violence and cruelty of those attacks. However, even with the presence of “Al Nosra” or even ISIL or any armed organization, does not justify randomly bombing targets of the city which is located within the control of any military faction and without taking into account the distinction between military and civilian people. Moreover, the violations targeted greatest goals-mentioned in the report- which were never military headquarters, and not even close to military headquarters. It is also relatively far from the lines of the clash, thus, no military value is found. We refer to the names of the victims and their pictures, women and children in addition to the families’ talks.
The report pointed out that the Governmental Forces are still using explosive barrels devices that are thrown from the sky and based on the principle of free fall. This is considered as indiscriminate weapon par excellence. We consider that every explosive barrel is a war crime, because it does not achieve any norm of international humanitarian law, and is still permitted in spite of Security Council resolutions, reports, and condemnations. The network recorded, during the period covered, around 86 explosive barrels on Aleppo city.
In this regard, Fadel Abdul Ghani, director of SNHR states:
“The responsibility for determining the places and the distributions of military sites for “Al Nosra” and ISIL exclusively, located mainly on the state sponsor of the Agreement on Cessation of Hostilities. We have referred to this in the first days of launching the statement of the agreement in order not to justify bombing any civilian target, easily, even if it is located in an area under Al Nosra or ISIL. The Syrian and the Russian Forces have exploited this gap, deliberately, in the agreement and justified killing of hundreds of civilians since the start of the statement so far.”