On Monday morning, Reuters ran a story claiming that airstrikes killed at least 12 children in the rebel-held town of Aleppo in Syria, blaming Russia for the attack. Reuters claims to have received the information from The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. As of 9:47 a.m., however, no such story had appeared on the U.K.-based monitor's site.
"Social media footage released by activists showed large scale destruction of a building with a classroom with destroyed benches and textbooks lying on the floor stained with blood," Reuters reports. "The footage could not be independently verified by Reuters."
The Agence France-Presse and The Telegraph also ran stories citing the same "report." No agencies have provided a hyperlink or a direct quote from the report.
The city of Aleppo has seen harsh violence in recent weeks. A battle took place on Saturday between Syrian regime forces and the IS in the al-Najara area, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The monitor also reported Hezbollah and Jabhat al-Nusra presence in the area.
While the report's origin is dubious, Russia has shown a chronically poor and non-transparent record of successful airstrikes. Amnesty International reported in December that Russian airstrikes have killed hundreds of civilians and wreaked havoc in residential areas.
"Some Russian air strikes appear to have directly attacked civilians or civilian objects by striking residential areas with no evident military target and even medical facilities, resulting in deaths and injuries to civilians," said Philip Luther, director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International, according to AI. "Such attacks may amount to war crimes."
Despite these reports, Russia has maintained its righteousness. Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman stated, "Russia is conducting its operation in strict conformity with principles and norms of the international law," according to the AP.
