A/HRC/34/64 of Humanities in Al-Furqan district, killing at least two female students. On 20 November, shortly before 11 a.m., armed group fighters situated in Bustan al-Qasr launched unguided rockets towards Al-Furqan district, striking the backyard and a building of Furqan elementary school, killing at least seven children and injuring a girl. On 28 November, armed groups struck the Maamoun school and an adjacent school in Al-Jamiliyah. At least one 18-year-old student suffered shrapnel injuries to his colon, liver and lungs, and died as a result. VII. Sheikh Maqsoud district Rocket and mortar attacks 75. Soon after the uprising in the Syrian Arab Republic, in 2012 government forces withdrew from predominantly Kurdish inhabited areas in the north of the country to focus on the ensuing conflict. Sheikh Maqsoud, a hilltop district at the northern edge of Aleppo city, has since been under the control of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). By April 2016, antiGovernment armed groups from the north, east and west surrounded the majority Kurdish district, which was subsequently subjected to a series of attacks. As pro-Government forces vied for control and laid siege to eastern Aleppo city, Sheikh Maqsoud witnessed a barrage of intentional attacks by both groups based in western Aleppo countryside and those affiliated with Fatah Halab (see para. 62 above) in eastern Aleppo city. Apart from rocket attacks directed at civilian-inhabited areas, sniper fire with precision rifles from armed group positions in eastern Aleppo city caused numerous casualties. The overall situation in the Kurdish-held enclave remains precarious; there are serious shortage of water and electricity, and most of the population subsists on generators and wells. 76. On 9 August, a Fatah Halab operations room commander, Major Yasser Abd ar-Rahim, delivered a statement vowing that the coalition of armed groups would take “revenge” on the Kurds in Sheikh Maqsoud, specifying that they would “not find a place to bury their dead in Aleppo”. Major Abd ar-Rahim accused the YPG of killing armed group fighters and of collaborating with pro-Government forces over the summer. While attacks against Sheikh Maqsoud decreased during the period under review (compared with earlier in the year, due to the siege), it was against this backdrop that armed groups intentionally attacked civilian-inhabited neighbourhoods of the Kurdish enclave, killing and maiming dozens of civilians. These acts constitute the war crime of directing attacks against a civilian population (see annex I, para. 20). 77. On 7 September, shortly before noon, a male doctor was on his way home when a barrage of seven unguided rockets struck Sheikh Maqsoud. Two of the rockets hit a residential street, while the other five damaged nearby buildings. YPG military sources later informed the doctor that the rockets had most likely travelled a long distance, originating from armed group-held Kafr Hamra, in the Aleppo countryside, approximately seven kilometres from the affected neighbourhood. A second male doctor, the only paediatric surgeon in Sheikh Maqsoud at the time, suffered multiple shrapnel injuries to the chest and subsequently died en route to a neighbouring Government-held area for treatment. Three other men suffered moderate, non-life threatening wounds. The area attacked, close to both Yasin Yasin school and the western market, was residential in nature, and situated at least one kilometre away from the nearest frontlines, with no YPG military presence. 78. On 8 October, at approximately 4 a.m., an unguided rocket struck the apartment of a family of six in a complex near a vegetable market on street number 10 in western Sheikh Maqsoud, and landed in one of its rooms. The rocket is believed to have originated from either the Bustan alPasha or Huluk areas of eastern Aleppo city. A boy and his aunt were immediately killed by shrapnel injuries to the head, along with the boy’s sister. The mother and grandmother were also 16