Srinagar: US led coalition forces against the Islamic state have killed 1,302 civilians ‘unintentionally since the beginning of Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq and Syria begun.
In a statement, the coalition said it had carried out 34,502 strikes since its air campaign against IS began there nearly five years ago.
BBC report said that a UK-based monitoring group says the true toll is much higher, estimating up to nearly 13,000 civilian fatalities.
The report said that the latest figure provided by the coalition is slightly higher than its previous admission eight months ago of 1,100 civilian deaths.
It says it is still assessing 111 more possible cases of civilian fatalities.
The latest acknowledgement stands in stark contrast to the claims of human rights and monitoring groups, which say the actual death toll is many times higher.
Amnesty International’s senior crisis response advisor Donatella Rovera accused the US-led coalition of remaining “deeply in denial” about the true scale.
“Today’s acknowledgement of further civilian deaths underscores the urgent need for thorough, independent investigations that can uncover the true scale of civilian casualties caused by coalition strikes, examine whether each attack complied with international humanitarian law and provide full reparation to victims,” she said.
Last month, an investigation by activists concluded that more than 1,600 civilians were killed in coalition attacks on the Syrian city of Raqqa alone during a five-month campaign to oust IS in 2017.
Raqqa had been the de facto capital of the jihadists’ self-proclaimed “caliphate”.
(courtesy BBC)
