- School was sheltering displaced people
- City of Raqqa is currently held by ISIL
- War monitor believes strike was carried out by US-led coalition
An air strike that hit a school sheltering displaced people near the ISIL held Syrian city of Raqqa killed at least 33 people, a group that monitors the war said on Wednesday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it believed the strike was carried out by the US-led coalition forces fighting ISIL in the area.
Observatory activists counted at least 33 bodies at the site near the village of al-Mansoura, west of Raqqa, Observatory Director Rami Abdulrahman told Reuters. The air strike took place on Monday night, he said.
The Pentagon said there were no indications that a US-led coalition strike near Raqqa had hit civilians, but that it would carry out further investigations.
Abdulrahman said the US-led coalition has escalated its aerial campaign against ISIL around Raqqa this month, causing numerous civilian casualties.
The nearest ISIL installation to the site of the air strike was a religious school 3 km (2 miles) away, he said.
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters stand with their weapons north of Raqqa city, Syria on March 8, 2017. /CFP Photo
The Syrian government urged the United Nations to stop "the devastation and destruction that the 'international coalition' is committing," state-run SANA news agency said on Wednesday.
Syria's foreign ministry accused the US-led coalition of committing a "massacre" by striking a school in the al-Mansoura village, SANA reported.
A spokesman for the US-led coalition has previously said that it does everything it can to avoid civilian casualties and that it investigates those that are reported as a result of its air strikes.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led alliance of militias backed by the US-led coalition, is fighting to isolate Raqqa ahead of an anticipated assault on the city, which ISIL has used as a command node to plan attacks abroad.
The head of the YPG militia, the strongest in the SDF, said last week that the offensive to retake Raqqa would begin in early April but a spokesman for the US Pentagon said no decision had yet been made.
(Source: Reuters)
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