"Persons taking no active part in the hostilities ... shall in all circumstances be treated humanely." Those are the opening words of the Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, signed at Geneva, 12 August 1949.
Although cluster bombs are not explicitly forbidden by the Geneva Law, the rules of war prohibit the use of inherently indiscriminate weapons or weapons that are incapable of being used in a manner that complies with the obligation to distinguish between civilians and combatants. Those who use them in civilian areas therefore open themselves to charges of war crimes.
The 13th night of air strikes included the first major NATO mistake when an attack on a barracks on the southern mining town of Aleksinac resulted in missiles striking a residential area
NATO's attack on a railway bridge hit a passenger train, killing 14 and leaving 16 injured.
NATO confirmed that a cluster bomb aimed at an airfield in the Yugoslav city of Niš hit a hospital and a market, killing 14 civilians and 60 injured.
On April 14, during daylight hours, NATO aircraft repeatedly bombed Albanian refugee movements over a twelve-mile (19 km) stretch of road between Đakovica and Dečani in western Kosovo, killing seventy-three civilians and injuring thirty-six others Human rights could document.
One of the largest incidents of civilian deaths, and certainly the largest in Belgrade, was the bombing of state TV headquarters in Belgrade on April 23. As a consequence, sixteen RTS civilian technicians and workers were killed and sixteen were wounded.
At least 16 civilians were killed after two NATO missiles hit a residential area in the southern town of Surdulica
A NATO bombing attack led to the deaths of at least three patients in a Belgrade hospital.
Posted: Sun Aug 05, 2012 11:31 am
