The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has urged the forces responsible for the attack on a girls’ school in Iran to investigate and share their views on the “horrific” incident. Reuters reports it on the site. «The High Commissioner (Volker Turk) calls for a prompt, impartial and thorough investigation into the circumstances of the attack. The burden of investigation falls on the forces that perpetrated the attack,” said Ravina Shamdasani, spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The US response and the death toll
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said U.S. forces would “not deliberately target a school,” after Iranian state media reported that more than 160 people were killed on the first day of U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran on Saturday.
Volker Türk’s appeal for the protection of civilians
The head of UN human rights, Volker Türk, said he was “deeply shocked by the consequences of generalized hostilities on civilians and civilian infrastructure since the beginning of the conflict on Saturday”, his spokeswoman said in Geneva, adding that the High Commissioner “calls on all parties to demonstrate maximum restraint, to prevent any further escalation and to take all possible measures to protect civilians”.
International law and the risk of war crimes
«The law of war is unequivocal. Civilians and civilian property are protected. All states and all armed groups must respect it,” added his spokeswoman, Ravina Shamdasani. “Attacks directed against civilians or civilian objects, as well as indiscriminate attacks,” he added, “constitute serious violations of international humanitarian law and can be classified as war crimes.”