The UN human rights chief has condemned "international indifference" to the mounting civilian death toll from air strikes by the government and Russia in north-west Syria, where at least 103 people, including 26 children, were killed in the space of 10 days.
“Despite repeated calls by the United Nations to respect the principle of precaution and distinction in their conduct of hostilities, this latest relentless campaign of air strikes by the government and its allies has continued to hit medical facilities, schools and other civilian infrastructure such as markets and bakeries,” Michelle Bachelet said in a statement on Friday.
Since late April, the Syrian regime and Russia have stepped up deadly raids on the Idlib region of three million people, a rebel-held bastion in the country's north-west.
Ms Bachelet said it was "highly unlikely, given the persistent pattern of such attacks" that civilian targets were being hit by accident.
“Intentional attacks against civilians are war crimes, and those who have ordered them or carried them out are criminally responsible for their actions,” she said.
More than 730 civilians have been killed in Idlib in air strikes and ground-to-ground fire by the Damascus government and its allies since late April, according to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights monitoring group. The region is controlled by an alliance of hardline militants called Hayat Tahrir Al Sham that is led by Al Qaeda's former Syria affiliate.
Syria's opposition has condemned the bombardment as "genocide", while aid groups have branded the carnage in Idlib the latest "nightmare" in the eight-year conflict.
Both the Syrian government and Russia, whose air power has been critical to Damascus' military gains in recent years, deny targeting civilians or civilian infrastructure and say they are targeting "terrorists".
The UN humanitarian affairs agency OCHA said that since the end of April it had documented 39 attacks against health facilities or medical workers in north-western Syria. At least 50 schools have been damaged by the air strikes and shelling.
OCHA spokesman David Swanson said that since the end of April, more than 400,000 people have been displaced in the region, comprising nearly all of Idlib and parts of neighbouring Aleppo, Hama and Latakia provinces.
Nearly half of the people in the area were already displaced from other parts of the country.
Most of the latest displacement is from southern Idlib and northern Hama, the two areas that have been hit hardest by the flare-up, OCHA said.
"The majority of those fleeing have displaced within Idlib governorate while a smaller number have moved into northern Aleppo governorate.
"Roughly two-thirds of people displaced are staying outside camps," it said.
Ms Bachelet said that even as "air strikes kill and maim significant numbers of civilians several times a week", the international "response seems to be a collective shrug, with the Security Council paralysed".
"This is a failure of leadership by the world's most powerful nations," she said.
Top UN officials have repeatedly condemned the Security Council's inaction on Syria, with several measures vetoed by Damascus ally Russia.
Syria's war has killed more than 400,000 people and displaced millions since it started in 2011 with a brutal crackdown on protests against President Bashar Al Assad's regime.
