A/HRC/34/64 December, when a group of approximately 200 men aged between 19 and 25 were forcibly conscripted after crossing with their families into western Aleppo. 91. From late November until evacuations were completed in December, some proGovernment forces carried out executions in reprisal. These included cases of Syrian soldiers killing their own relatives who were supporters of armed groups. Pro-Government forces also executed an armed group commander’s wife and daughter while they attempted to cross into western Aleppo. In December, relatives of fighters of the Free Syrian Army, including women and elderly, were reportedly killed in Bustan al-Qasr. 92. During the mid-December evacuations, pro-Government forces stopped and handcuffed three armed group fighters rendered hors de combat. A fourth fighter fired shots as they tried to apprehend him, prompting the soldiers to shoot all four men. During the evacuations, some pro-Government forces again conscripted men and boys as young as 16 years (ibid., para. 53), and pillaged evacuee property, including money, jewellery, laptops and mobile phones (ibid., para. 31). 93. After the Government reached an evacuation agreement with armed groups in midDecember, residents of eastern Aleppo were transported from the city in government buses and private vehicles to Idlib, while others fled to western Aleppo. None had the option to remain in their home. As part of the agreement, more than 1,000 people were evacuated from Foah and Kafraya and went to Aleppo, Tartous, Homs and Latakia governorates. As warring parties agreed to the evacuation of eastern Aleppo for strategic reasons – and not for the security of civilians or imperative military necessity, which permit the displacement of thousands - the Aleppo evacuation agreement amounts to the war crime of forced displacement (ibid., paras. 50-51). X. Conclusions 94. Parties to the battle for Aleppo committed serious violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law amounting to war crimes. As pro-Government forces and armed groups fought for control of eastern Aleppo city, civilians caught in the fighting were increasingly left vulnerable to repeated violations by all sides. 95. Resorting to a concerted aerial campaign coupled with ground forces that encircled eastern Aleppo city, government forces and their allies employed brutal tactics to force the armed groups to surrender. The siege simultaneously deprived civilians of freedom of movement and prevented basic commodities, including food and medical supplies, from entering the city. Widely used throughout the conflict, the use of this “surrender or starve” tactic by the pro-Government forces has proven disastrous for civilians but successful for overtaking opposition-held territory. 96. While the deprivation of supplies might have ultimately forced armed groups to surrender, the achievement of this result was accelerated by daily Syrian and Russian air strikes, which claimed hundreds of lives and destroyed vital civilian infrastructure. Chief among these were the bombardments that destroyed or otherwise rendered all hospitals in eastern Aleppo out of service by December. In none of the incidents investigated by the Commission were military targets identified as being present in or around the vicinity of a hospital, nor were warnings given prior to any given attack as required by international humanitarian law. Furthermore, the fact that the same hospitals were repeatedly bombarded within two specific time frames – late September to mid-October and mid-November 2016 – strongly suggests that proGovernment forces committed the war crimes of intentionally targeting protected objects, medical personnel and transport. 19