NATO must investigate civilian casualties in Libya - HRW

by admin
May 13, 2012

NATO has criticised a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), urging it to investigate civilian deaths from air strikes during the alliance’s offensive against Colonel Gaddafi’s forces.

HRW claims in its report released on Monday that over 72 civilians were killed in 8 separate NATO air strikes.

“We're calling for prompt, credible and thorough investigations," HRW's Fred Abrahams told BBC News.

"Until now, NATO has taken a position of denial [...] I think it will lead to unnecessary civilian deaths in the future if NATO refuses to look at what went wrong and make corrections."

NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu said the alliance conducted the offensive "with unprecedented care and precision" and that they "did everything possible to minimise risks to civilians".

"But in a complex military campaign, that risk can never be zero," spokeswoman Oana Lungescu acknowledged.

She added that the alliance "looked into each credible allegation" of attacks on civilians and "confirmed that the specific targets struck by NATO were legitimate military targets".

Add new comment

About text formats

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Global and entity tokens are replaced with their values. Browse available tokens.

Restricted HTML

  • You can align images (data-align="center"), but also videos, blockquotes, and so on.
  • You can caption images (data-caption="Text"), but also videos, blockquotes, and so on.
  • Global and entity tokens are replaced with their values. Browse available tokens.
  • You can embed media items (using the <drupal-media> tag).

We need your support

Sri Lanka is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist. Tamil journalists are particularly at threat, with at least 41 media workers known to have been killed by the Sri Lankan state or its paramilitaries during and after the armed conflict.

Despite the risks, our team on the ground remain committed to providing detailed and accurate reporting of developments in the Tamil homeland, across the island and around the world, as well as providing expert analysis and insight from the Tamil point of view

We need your support in keeping our journalism going. Support our work today.

link button