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Amnesty: U.S. Airstrikes in Raqqa, Syria, May Have Constituted War Crimes

HeadlineJun 05, 2018

Amnesty International says the U.S. airstrikes launched last year during the 2017 offensive to oust ISIS militants from the Syrian city of Raqqa were in violation of international law and potentially constitute war crimes. In Amnesty’s new report, titled “War of Annihilation,” the group writes, “On the ground in Raqqa we witnessed a level of destruction comparable to anything we’ve seen in decades of covering the impact of wars.” The report is based on interviews with more than 100 civilian survivors, including members of the Badran family, which lost 39 family members and 10 neighbors in four separate U.S.-led coalition airstrikes. This is Donatella Rovera from Amnesty International.

Donatella Rovera: “We are talking about airstrikes which should be fairly precise. So, if buildings after buildings were destroyed, with entire families inside, something must have gone wrong. And that something must be investigated, because the people of Raqqa deserve justice, and they deserve to know what went wrong. But until now, coalition officials have refused to engage in any meaningful way.”

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