More than one in four civilian casualties during the fighting in Islamic State-occupied Mosul were caused by the US-led coalition’s airstrikes, a UN report has found. The international community should investigate and pay compensation, it said.
At least 2,521 civilians were killed and 1,673 wounded as the US-led coalition spearheaded the operation to recapture Mosul, which rocked Islamic State’s (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) so-called “capital” and its surroundings for over nine months. These figures should be considered as an “absolute minimum,” a new report on the “liberation,” issued by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the UN assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) on Thursday stated.
At least 741 of the victims were executed by Islamic State terrorists, while the deaths caused directly by fighting amounted to 1,780 civilians. While the report mainly focuses on IS atrocities, it states that more than one-fourth of the civilian deaths – 461 – were caused by the airstrikes during the operation. The US-led coalition confirmed their involvement in the deaths of 295 civilians during the Mosul operation and the remaining ones “could not be attributed,” according to the