MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Amnesty International senior crisis response adviser Donatella Rovera said that many of those who followed the authorities' advice to remain in the city were killed by airstrikes.
"The fact that the authorities advised people to remain in their homes, also meant that some people who might otherwise have tried to escape did not do so… They heeded the call to remain in their homes and then their homes were bombed," Rovera said.
Rovera stressed that, "while it is understandable that fighting and warfare in an urban environment carries inherent risks for the civilian population," it is vitally important that "the parties involved spare no effort and take all the possible and feasible precautions."
She confirmed that Amnesty was calling for an investigation into the excessive use of force in Mosul, particularly in instances when militants of Daesh, outlawed in Russia, use residential areas as a base and civilians as human shields.
UN Human Rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Hussein condemned on Tuesday the loss of life, noting that at least 307 civilians have been killed and another 273 injured in the area of northern Mosul between February 17 and March 22.
On March 17, a US-led coalition airstrike, targeting Daesh militants and equipment, hit a building in al-Jadida neighborhood in western Mosul, into which militants had forced dozens of civilians while at the same time rigging the building with explosives. Iraqi media reported that up to 200 people, many of whom were civilians, were killed in the airstrike.
