UNICEF: Snipers Targeting Children In Libyan City

[JenGiove]

http://www.aolnews.com/2011/04/08/unicef-snipers-targeting-children-in-misrata-libya/

GENEVA -- Snipers are targeting children in the besieged rebel-held Libyan city of Misrata, the U.N.' s children agency said Friday.

Hundreds of residents have been killed and wounded in the assault by Gadhafi's forces on Libya's third-largest city, and residents are running short of water, food and medicine.

"What we have are reliable and consistent reports of children being among the people targeted by snipers in Misrata," UNICEF spokeswoman Marixie Mercado told reporters in Geneva.

The information was based on local sources, Mercado said. She was unable to say how many children have been wounded or killed in this way.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it is sending a team to Misrata by boat Friday and would investigate the reports of snipers targeting children.

A spokesman for the Geneva-based aid group, Christian Cardon, told The Associated Press that children and other civilians not involved in hostilities are never a legitimate target in an armed conflict. "But without having any more information, we can't comment on what is happening there," he said.

 

[Caustic Logic]

Because Jen Giove is mad anout this, I feel compelled to put her mind at ease as best I can.

I cannot totally rule out that the Gaddafi regime is ordering children killed, as most people have presumed from this report. It’s almost impossible to prove a negative, of course.

However, the closest we have to visual proof (of bullets inside children, not of who fired them) are two x-ray images I’ve seen - in a video from around April 9 and a photo from an April 10 article, shown together below.
[okay, cannot post the picture, see article, named below]
Left: a girl evacuated to Turkey for her surgery, low-res video, skewed to correct for the angle. Right, a boy still in Misrata. Other than differences in the background (the films are translucent), they seem to be the same exact image. And that image looks fake to me – no ribs disturbed at all, no bullet deformation, and a strange angle of fire.

I explain this more fully in an article called “the sniped tykes of Misrata” if anyone's curious. (can't link it, but it's easy to find). It’s just bizarre.

I'm kind of curious what anyone here thinks of that argument, in relation to the charge leveled by UNICEF. Is the evidence good after all? Are children being targeted there? By whom? Etc.?