(Iraq) Monitors report ‘hundreds’ of civilian deaths from coalition strikes

[unhappycamper]

http://www.france24.com/en/20150803-coalition-air-strikes-civilian-casualties-monitoring-report-death-toll



Children check a damaged house, reportedly hit by US-led coalition air strikes, in the Syrian village of Kfar Derian on September 23, 2014

Monitors report ‘hundreds’ of civilian deaths from coalition strikes
Latest update : 2015-08-04

A year after the United States started bombing Islamic State (IS) group targets in Iraq, a monitoring group has expressed concern over the rising number of civilians killed by coalition airstrikes.

A six-month investigation into alleged civilian and “friendly fire” deaths from air strikes in Iraq and Syria has identified far more worrying incidents than have been acknowledged by the US-led coalition, with potentially many hundreds of non-combatants killed since the campaign against the IS group began.

The London-based monitoring group Airwars said the coalition’s admission of only two to four ‘likely’ civilian deaths over the course of many months stood in stark contrast to its own projected death toll. The compilation and evaluation of dozens of reports from Iraq and Syria suggest more than 1,000 civilians may have already perished under coalition bombs.

“We speak regularly with the Coalition and CENTCOM [US Central Command] and it’s clear they take the issue seriously, but it has become clear that they are aware of far fewer casualties than has been published in the public record, only around one-third of incidents. This worries us,” Airwars director Chris Woods told FRANCE 24.

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http://airwars.org/