A/HRC/22/59 Bab Al-Salama crossing 29. As civilians fled their homes from across Aleppo governorate to refugee camps in Turkey, many approached the border at the Bab Al-Salama crossing in northern Aleppo. There were consistent documented accounts that in early October, there was an airstrike on Sajou, a small village adjacent to Bab Al-Salama crossing. An estimated 200–300 people had sought shelter in a school in Sajou village. Around 06:00, civilians in the school heard the sound of an approaching fighter jet and in a panic, began to run out to seek shelter elsewhere. The fighter jet dropped a “barrel bomb,” killing over a dozen persons, many of whom were women and children. Approximately 10 were members of the Shahoud family. Al-Sahara 30. The village of Al-Sahara, due to its geostrategic location, has been used by the FSA and other anti-Government armed groups — including the Al-Nusra Front — as a recruitment and training location. On 3 August, the village came under sustained and heavy shelling and aerial bombardment, with shells and bombs hitting residential homes, farms and parks. Around 60 shells hit the village in one day, killing approximately 10 persons, among them women and children. The FSA and other anti-Government armed groups, including the Al-Nusra Front had been occupying residential homes and schools. According to interviewees who witnessed the shelling, the shelling and aerial bombardment was not targeted at any specific area and according to one former resident of Al-Sahara, the shelling appeared to be “like revenge or punishment to all the residents.” As a result of the shelling and aerial bombardment of the entirety of Al-Sahara, most of the houses in the village were destroyed or partially damaged. The shells were fired from Aurom Al-Sugra where the 46th Regiment is based. 31. An attack by bombardment (whether aerial or shelling) which treats as a single military objective a number of clearly separated and distinct military objectives located in a city, town, village or area containing a concentration of civilians or civilian objects, amounts to “area bombardment,” which under international humanitarian law is indiscriminate and as such, prohibited. Such conduct, perpetrated by the Syrian armed forces is in violation of international humanitarian law. Mare’a 32. Throughout this reporting period, Mare’a has been regularly attacked by Government forces. Accounts indicate that the area was shelled from the Infantry Military School in Aleppo. Recorded incidents demonstrate a pattern of indiscriminate and widespread shelling as well as indiscriminate firing on civilian targets. In August, shrapnel from mortar shelling injured civilians in Mare’a. On or about 1 September, a bus carrying civilians, among them women and children, from Mare’a to Azaz, was hit by shrapnel from the aerial bombardment of a nearby school and upon returning to Mare’a, the bus was hit directly by a “barrel bomb.” 33. On 11 September at 11:30, a fighter jet dropped a “barrel bomb” on a gathering of workers loading potatoes into a cold storage warehouse, killing five and injuring many others. An interviewee who witnessed the attack said that the fighter jet had first dropped a “barrel bomb” on a nearby bakery that resulted in no casualties since the bakery was empty. According to the same interviewee, the fighter jet then returned, flying at a lower altitude before dropping the “barrel bomb” on the workers at the warehouse, appearing to target any concentrated gathering of persons. In late December, the village of Harbal near Mare’a was subjected to aerial bombardment, with fighter jets dropping “barrel bombs” on civilian areas. 92 GE.13-10627