Airstrikes kill 22 Syria schoolchildren, 6 teachers
BEIRUT: Airstrikes that hit a school in rebel-held Idlib province in northwest Syria killed 22 children and six teachers, Unicef said on Wednesday, adding that it may be the deadliest attack on a school since the war began more than five years ago.
Air strikes that hit a school in rebel-held Idlib province in northwest Syria killed 22 children and six teachers, the UN children’s agency Unicef said on Wednesday.
“This is a tragedy. It is an outrage. And if deliberate, it is a war crime,” said Unicef director Anthony Lake.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said “warplanes -either Russia or Syrian -- carried out six strikes” in the village of Hass, including on a school complex, killing at least 35 civilians including 11 schoolchildren.
Lake said the school compound was “repeatedly attacked,” adding that it may be the deadliest attack on a school since the war began more than five years ago.
“When will the world’s revulsion at such barbarity be matched by insistence that this must stop?” added the Unicef director.
Asked about the attack, Russia’s UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin responded: “It’s horrible, horrible. I hope we were not involved.”
Syrian government forces and their Russian ally have been accused by rights groups of carrying out indiscriminate attacks on civilian infrastructure.
The White Helmets civil defence group released pictures of four rescue workers clambering over a mound of rubble in search of survivors after what it said was a “double-tap” strike on the school. The raids hit Hass around 11.30 am, an activist with the opposition Idlib Media Centre told AFP.