The Russian Federation was accused before the United Nations Human Rights Committee in Geneva of having carried out a deliberate attack on a hospital in Syria, in an action that highlights Moscow’s repeated use of military force against health facilities in Syria, where it has supported the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. This was reported by the ReliefWeb portal.
A complaint before the Committee, filed yesterday, focuses on a series of airstrikes on the Kafr Nabl surgical hospital in Idlib province on May 5, 2019. The Russian Air Force is accused of killing two civilians and endangering the lives of everyone who worked and used the hospital at the time: doctors, patients, support staff and visitors.
The complaint was presented to the UN Committee by a Syrian man whose two cousins were killed in the attack, and by Hand in Hand for Aid and Development, the humanitarian NGO that supported the hospital at the time. Hand in Hand represents the interests of the hospital’s patients.
The claimants are represented by lawyers from the Open Society Justice Initiative, with Professor Philip Leach, professor of human rights law at Britain’s Middlesex University, as co-counsel.
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