A U.N. panel said Wednesday the evacuation of eastern Aleppo in December, after months of siege and aerial bombing by Russian and Syrian forces, was one of many war crimes committed by those fighting for control of Syria’s largest city.
The Commission of Inquiry on Syria unveiled a report looking at violations by all parties in last year’s battle for Aleppo. It singled out a “particularly egregious attack” in which Syrian warplanes targeted a humanitarian aid convoy.
The findings come amid an open-ended stretch of talks aimed at resolving the six-year-long conflict. The capture of Aleppo was a major victory for President Bashar al-Assad and shifted the military balance in his favor.
The agreement to evacuate rebel-held eastern Aleppo gave civilians no option to remain at the end of the protracted campaign, in which daily aerial bombings killed hundreds of people and left all the hospitals in the area out of service.
The commission said the agreement amounted to “the war crime of forced displacement.”
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/un-panel-says-evacuatio…
