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Syrian-Russian airstrikes and artillery attacks on June 14, 2017, in a town in the southern Daraa governorate killed 10 civilians in and near a school, Human Rights Watch said today. Residents said they were not aware of any military targets in the vicinity of the attacks.

One of the airstrikes hit the courtyard of Martyr Kiwan middle school in the town of Tafas, killing eight people, including a child, most of them members of a family who had been displaced from another town and were takingshelter there, witnesses said. Artillery attacks roughly an hour earlier on the same day killed two other civilians, including one child, near the school. At least five people were wounded.

The impact crater in the Martyr Kiwan school courtyard from a Syrian-Russian airstrike on June 14, 2017. Seven of the eight casualties, including a child, were from a displaced family and had been sheltering in the school.

"A sign at the entrance of the middle school in Tafas says, 'Keep the school clean,' but the floor was smeared with the blood of a whole family on June 14," said Bill Van Esveld, senior children's rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. "As long as no one is held responsible for such repeated unlawful attacks, it's likely they will continue."

Witnesses said that