To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, if his Department will undertake a public investigation into the air strike at Tal al-Jayer in Syria on 12 June 2018 to determine whether munitions from RAF planes were responsible for civilian casualties.
Answered on
2 July 2020
Abiding by International Humanitarian Law and the Law of Armed Conflict is of the utmost importance to this Government and is central to all of our military operations at home and overseas.
UK aircraft conducted a single strike on 12 June 2018. Ministry of Defence officials have cross referenced the village name with coordinates of that strike and established that they differ by approximately four miles and that the UK did not strike any buildings. Therefore, from the evidence available, we have no reason to believe that the UK was responsible for any civilian casualties on 12 June 2018.
As the Government has stated previously, we will always work closely with partners and civil society and investigate all credible claims that UK aircraft have been responsible for civilian casualties.