The U.N.’s children agency condemned the killing of children amid Syria’s ongoing civil war following the brutal incidents in the country’s north.
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Amnesty International said airstrikes on the al-Tukhar village Monday and Tuesday killed at least 60, according to CNN, while the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces said strikes in both places killed 95 people total.
He said: “Even with the widespread use of relatively precise weapons by the West, air strikes are the most lethal weapon against civilians”.
However, the Syrian Center for Policy Research, an NGO, has put the death toll from the five-year conflict at more than 470,000.
The U.S.-led coalition said it has conducted more than 500 strikes in support of the SAC near Manbij, about 85 percent of which is Arab, Pentagon officials have said. The Washington Post quotes one former local council member in saying that “people are now full of hatred” for the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, with some of the force’s members questioning whether they want to remain.
In a statement distributed Thursday, UNICEF says dozens of children were among those killed in and around the town of Manbij in the past few days.
Only after the strike did the U.S.-led coalition receive reports from sources indicating there may have been civilians in the area.
Their reports were impossible to independently verify on the ground.(ANSAmed).
After a Wednesday meeting with defense ministers from nations engaged in the anti-ISIS military action in Iraq and Syria, U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said he was aware of reports about civilians killed in Manbij.
The French Foreign Ministry said in a daily briefing that it “gave no credit to statements made by the regime of [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad” and that an investigation by the coalition would establish if coalition air strikes against ISIL had killed civilians.
According to the US Central Command (CENTCOM), the US-led forces launched 11 strikes on 17 July and 18 strikes on 18 July against ISIS tactical units and fighting positions near the city.
Meanwhile, fighting rages in the nearby city of Manbij between U.S- backed fighters and Islamic State militants.
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The Observatory has called on the U.S.-led coalition conducting the air strikes in Syria to be “very careful” when operating near Manbij as “tens of thousands of civilians” live in the city.
