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UN Calls for War Crime Probe Into Strike on Syrian School

by VOA News

   U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for an investigation Thursday
   into an air strike on a school in Syria that killed more than 20
   people, most of them children, the day before.

   "If deliberate, this attack may amount to a war crime," Ban said in a
   statement from his spokesman.

   Former British prime minister Gordon Brown also called for a war crimes
   investigation, calling the attack the "worst assault on school children
   among 98 separate attacks on Syrian schools in the last two years."

   Warplanes carried out six strikes Wednesday on a village in rebel-held
   Idlib, including on a school complex, leaving six teachers and 22 of
   their students dead, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human
   Rights.

   This photo provided by the Revolutionary Forces of Syria, an opposition
   activist media organization, which has been authenticated based on its
   contents and other AP reporting, shows an airstrike that killed over 20
   people in the village of Hass, Syria, Oct. 26, 2016.

   Both the observatory and the White House have said that either the
   Syrian or Russian governments are responsible for the attacks.

   "We don't know yet that it was the Assad regime or the Russians that
   carried out the air strike, but we know it was one of the two," White
   House spokesman Josh Earnest said.

   But Russian defense ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said Russian
   warplanes did not enter the airspace over the school at the time in
   question, also claiming that footage from a Russian drone of the
   damaged site was not consistent with an air strike, according to
   Russian agencies.

   Photo provided by Muaz al-Shami, Syrian Revolution Network, an
   opposition activist media organization, that is consistent with
   independent AP reporting, shows a child on a hospital bed, with a
   bandage around his head after airstrikes killed over 20 people.