Heavy civilian casualties in Raqqa from air strikes
ISIS convoy receives permission to evacuate
GENEVA (Reuters) – Civilians caught up in the battle for the Syrian city of Raqqa are paying an “unacceptable price,” and attacking forces may be contravening international law with their intense air strikes, the top United Nations human-rights official said on Thursday.
A US-led coalition is seeking to oust Islamic State from Raqqa, while Syrian government forces, backed by the Russian air force and Iranbacked militias are also advancing on the city.
Some 20,000 civilians are trapped in Raqqa where the jihadist fighters are holding some of them as human shields, the world body said.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said his office had documented 151 civilian deaths in six incidents alone in August, due to air strikes and ground-based attacks.
“Given the extremely high number of reports of civilian casualties this month and the intensity of the air strikes on Raqqa, coupled with ISIL’s use of civilians as human shields, I am deeply concerned that civilians – who should be protected at all times – are paying an unacceptable price and that forces involved in battling ISIL are losing sight of the ultimate goal of this battle,” Zeid said in a statement.
“The attacking forces may be failing to abide by the international humanitarian law principles of precautions, distinction and proportionality,” he said.
The US-led coalition has said it conducted nearly 1,100 air strikes on and near Raqqa this month, up from 645 in July, the UN statement said. Russia’s air force has reported carrying out 2,518 air strikes across Syria in the first three weeks of August, it added.
“Meanwhile ISIL fighters continue to prevent civilians from fleeing the area, although some manage to leave after paying large amounts of money to smugglers,” Zeid said. “We have reports of smugglers also being publicly executed by ISIL.”
US-led warplanes on Wednesday blocked a convoy of Islamic State fighters and their families from reaching territory the group holds in eastern Syria and struck some of their comrades traveling to meet them, a coalition spokesman said.
Also Thursday, a commander in the pro-Syrian government military alliance said an Islamic State evacuation convoy in eastern Syria that was blocked by US-led air strikes will head from government-held Sukhna toward the Islamic Stateheld Deir al-Zor region.
Hezbollah and the Syrian army arranged the evacuation as part of a cease-fire with Islamic State in an enclave on the Lebanon-Syria border after an offensive last week.
But US-led coalition forces blocked the convoy from moving into Islamic State-held territory on Wednesday by striking the road ahead and some of their comrades traveling to meet them.
The cease-fire deal has been criticized by the coalition and by Iraq, whose army is also fighting Islamic State in areas next to the eastern Syria region to which the convoy was headed.
The coalition might strike again, the coalition spokesman Col. Ryan Dillon said by phone on Thursday.
“We will continue to monitor the convoys in real time... and take advantage of known ISIS [fighters] in open areas away from civilians and strike them,” he said.
Dillon said on Wednesday the coalition was “not bound by these agreements,” referring to the ceasefire deal and making clear it was being used to move fighters from one location to another “to fight yet again.”
The commander in the pro-Syrian government military alliance said the location for the convoy to move into Islamic State-held territory had been changed from Humeima in the Southeast to Sukhna, further north, and that part of the deal was already moving forward.
He said an exchange had begun in the desert, under which the bodies of an Iranian killed in the fighting and two other dead fighters would be swapped for 25 wounded Islamic State fighters.
Iran backs Syrian government forces in the civil war that began in Syria in 2011. In Tehran, the country’s Revolutionary Guards said on its website that the dead Iranian had been identified as Mohsen Hojaji and that a funeral procession would be held for him in the Iranian capital on Saturday.
The evacuation deal allowed for a convoy of 600 individuals, of whom Hezbollah says almost half are civilians, to be transferred to Islamic State-held territory in eastern Syria.
The deal also involved Islamic State revealing the fate of nine Lebanese soldiers it took captive in its border enclave in 2014, as well as surrendering a Hezbollah prisoner.
An official in the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, which is helping with the exchange, has entered Islamic State territory to accompany the prisoner back to the government-held area, the commander in the pro-Assad military alliance said.
The commander added that the delay in the convoy moving after it reached the original exchange point on Tuesday was caused by the coalition strike on Wednesday and by a dispute between Islamic State commanders.
Hezbollah-aligned al Akhbar newspaper in Lebanon reported on Thursday that some Islamic State leaders in eastern Syria did not want members of the group who had surrendered territory to be welcomed back into their self-declared caliphate.