A/HRC/22/59 streets until they could be retrieved at night. The interviewee stated that in Dayr az Zawr, there were too many casualties of sniper fire to count, but that he saw many bodies, “unidentified,” lying on the streets. 65. During late July and August, Al-Muhassan was subjected to heavy aerial bombardment and shelling on a daily basis, from a nearby airport, often after the breaking of the Ramadan fast, iftar or early in the morning. The attacks, which often hit or affected civilians gathered for the evening meal, caused high civilian casualties. According to a former resident of Al-Muhassan, much of the civilian population of the town fled due to the shelling and aerial bombardment. 66. In September, a military plane fired four rockets at Mohamed Al-Issa bakery in AlMuhassan. The attack occurred at 07:00, killing eight civilians who had lined up to buy bread, among them women and children, and severely injuring 16 others. Soon after the attack, the military plane returned to the area and fired a rocket at a residential home, killing two women. 67. The shelling and heavy aerial bombardment of Al-Muhassan continued into late September. According to a victim of the attacks, Al-Muhassan was shelled during the night from Dayr az Zawr airport, and bombarded from fighter jets and helicopters during the day, which dropped “barrel bombs” at random. 68. On 9 November at around 08.00, the Air Force shelled the market of Al-Quriyah village. The attack occurred on a women’s market day, killing 21 civilians, 19 of whom were women. An interviewee who ran to the market after hearing the attack described the scene, “I saw scattered bodies, scattered limbs and heads, and remains of bodies. One body was a mere pile of flesh. No one was able to identify the body.” According to witnesses to the attack, the shelling came from a Syrian Artillery Battalion of the 17th Division stationed in Al-Mayadin city. 69. The attacks described by interviewees are often indiscriminate by their nature and method. The shelling and aerial bombardment of Al-Muhassan raises the spectre of area bombardment, with the entirety of the town targeted by Government forces as a single military target. The attack on the bread line and bakeries in Al-Muhassan, in addition to the general indiscriminate shelling and bombardment of civilian objects, has the effect of spreading terror among the civilian population, which is a serious violation of international humanitarian law. The bombardment of the market in Al-Quriyah was indiscriminate. In so far as the attack was deliberately carried out, in the knowledge that the market was a civilian object and contained a high concentration of civilians who were not directly participating in hostilities, the attack could amount to the war crime of attacking civilians. F. Hama governorate 70. Qalaat Al-Madiq was heavily and indiscriminately shelled on 21 December. In the context of the hostilities, a 12 year old child was killed by sniper fire. 71. On 23 December at 16:00, the Alfourn Albalai (Baladi Bakery) in Halfaya was targeted by at least four rockets by a fighter jet. Accounts indicate that around 1000 people were queuing outside the bakery. As one interviewee explained, “We hadn’t received flour for several days, there wasn’t a single loaf in the city, so almost everyone was going to the bakery that day, and many of them were women and children.” One interviewee described how 15 minutes prior to the attack, a helicopter hovered above the area. Another interviewee, who arrived at the bakery following the attack, described the scene, “When I got there, I could see bodies all over the road. There were women and children ... Corpses could not be identified as the bodies were disfigured.” The heavy shelling of Halfaya continued into January 2013. 98 GE.13-10627