You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

U.N.: Aleppo Siege & Strikes Constitute “Crimes of Historic Proportions”

HeadlineOct 21, 2016

The top United Nations human rights official has said that the siege and bombing of eastern Aleppo in Syria has constituted “crimes of historic proportions.” Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein spoke earlier today during a special session of the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein: “Armed opposition groups continue to fire mortars and other projectiles into civilian neighborhoods of western Aleppo, but indiscriminate airstrikes across the eastern part of the city by government forces and their allies are responsible for the overwhelming majority of civilian casualties. And these violations constitute war crimes. And if knowingly committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against civilians, they’d constitute crimes against humanity.”

Topics:
The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top