UN investigators says aerial bombardments by the Syrian military and its ally, Russia, are causing increased numbers of casualties in the Syrian civil war.
The four-member UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria criticized all sides for an increase in "indiscriminate attacks on civilians" in the deadly civil war that has killed more than 250,000 people and displaced millions of others since it began in March 2011.
But Vitit Muntarbhorn, one of the UN investigators, told reporters on September 6 that aerial bombardments by "pro-government forces...cause the most civilian casualties and damage to the civilian infrastructure, particularly in Idlib and Aleppo."
Commission chief Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, when asked to define pro-government forces in Syria, said: "The forces that are in the air are Russian and Syrian forces."
In a new report issued on September 6, the commission said bombardments by pro-government forces were mostly to blame for the upsurge in violence and cited bombings that had destroyed more than 20 hospitals and clinics just in the Aleppo region since January.
The investigators also expressed deep concern for "at least 300,000 civilians" under siege in rebel-held eastern Aleppo.