Syria ‘Reduced to Ruins,’ with Civilians Paying the Biggest Price, says UN Human Rights Panel
As the Syrian conflict is entering its sixth year, civilians are bearing the brunt of intensifying hostilities conducted by an ever-increasing number of warring parties, with aerial bombardments by pro-Government forces leaving “few safe places,” a new United Nations-mandated report has found.
The new report of the Commission of Inquiry on Syria, a body mandated by the UN Human Rights Commission to investigate and record all violations of international law since March 2011, details the catastrophic destruction of civilian infrastructure, including medical care and educational facilities, public spaces, electricity and water installations.
The report, the Commission’s eleventh to the Council, draws on 415 interviews with victims and eyewitnesses in and outside the country, collected between July 2015 and January 2016.
“As their country is reduced to ruins around them, Syrian men, women and children – often the objects of deliberate attack – are fleeing their homes in an uncertain and often perilous search for safe haven,” said Commission Chair Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro.
“We are seeing an overwhelming yet consistent intensification of external military involvement in Syria by all parties, with devastating consequences for civilians and various communities,” he stressed, adding that: “With the intensification of airstrikes, there are few safe places for civilians.”
He also emphasized that “relevant Security Council resolutions remain largely unheeded and unimplemented.”
The report further finds that crimes against humanity continue to be committed by Government forces and by terrorist groups, such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL/Da’esh. The commission of war crimes by belligerents is rampant.
Aerial bombardments by pro-Government forces of areas not controlled by the Government have caused hundreds of civilian casualties, mass displacements, and destruction of vital civilian infrastructure, the report notes.
All warring parties, including pro-Government forces, anti-Government armed groups, and the terrorist groups, such as ISIL/Da’esh and Jabhat al-Nusra, carry out indiscriminate attacks by firing shells onto civilian-inhabited areas under control of the opposition, the report says.
“The damage wrought on Syria by this war cannot be measured solely by loss of life and the physical destruction of the country,” said Commissioner Vitit Muntarbhorn. “The war has also devastated the nation of Syria, ripping asunder the ties that bind its communities and cultures together.”
The report also finds that cultural heritage sites, which are important to Syria and the world, are also being destroyed and damaged through deliberate and incidental attacks.
The report emphasizes the need for concerted and sustained international action to find a political solution to end the violence and to stop the rampancy of war crimes and grave violations of human rights.
“Humanitarian space is shrinking daily, while flagrant violations of human rights and international humanitarian law continue with blatant impunity,” said Commission member Carla Del Ponte. “The call for peace is now more urgent than ever, but momentum must be sustained to ensure an all-inclusive, Syrian-led process.”
Ms. Del Ponte stressed that Security Council resolution 2139 underlined the need to end impunity and reaffirmed the necessity of bringing perpetrators to justice. “Accountability is an essential part of this process,” she said.
The "Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic", 11th edition, is here:
https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/CoISyria/A-HRC-31-68.pdf
We analyzed an advance copy in my group, the International Relations Professional Discussions group, some 10 days ago.
Remarks at a UN General Assembly Briefing by the Chair of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria by Ambassador Michele J. Sison, U.S. Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations
U.S. Mission to the United Nations, New York City, NY, February 22, 2016
Thank you, Mr. President of the General Assembly. And thank you, President Pinhiero, very good to see again here today as well as Mr. Muntarbhorn. Your briefing yet again lays out the deeply concerning situation in Syria and reaffirms the urgent need for a political solution to the conflict. The COI, despite denials of access, continues to provide critical reporting on ongoing gross violations and abuses in Syria. The United States strongly supports the renewal of the COI's mandate at the March Human Rights Council session and urges other states to do so as well.
For years, the COI has described continued atrocities by the Assad regime, including those involving what it characterizes as systemic attacks on civilians, restriction on humanitarian assistance, torture, and the detention and disappearance of civilians on the basis of their associations.
This Commission has articulated once again, in very clear terms and with tragic examples, that civilians remain the primary victims of this conflict and are often the target of deliberate attacks.
I want to underscore the importance of the COI in pointing out the horrific crimes that are ongoing and pervasive but taking place "out of sight"- a massive and systematized abuse of detainees by the Syrian regime, including torture, rape and murder, among other inhuman behavior. The regime continues to unjustly imprison women, children, doctors, humanitarian aid workers, human rights defenders, journalists, and others. We are appalled by the torture, sexual violence, and inhumane conditions that these prisoners are suffering. As the COI has documented only too well, Syria's civilian population centers have suffered consistent attacks throughout this conflict, with enormous loss of life, displacement, and a tremendous destruction of the infrastructure of the country.
While the COI's reports have implicated many sides in such attacks, we have been deeply concerned - and frankly, outraged - at the recent reports of the military operations conducted by the Assad regime, allied foreign militias, and Russia, which have continued to kill and injure civilians, destroy and debilitate hospitals and schools, and that have recently displaced upwards of over 70,000 people - mostly civilians - in Aleppo and Idlib.
According to the COI, the targeting of medical facilities, personnel and transport, and the denial of access to medical care remain an "ingrained feature of the Syrian conflict." As has been noted, MSF released a new report recently that documented that at least 17 health facilities have already been bombed in Syria in 2016, including six supported by Médecins Sans Frontières. And, as has also been noted, attacks on schools have contributed to the more than three million children who are no longer attending classes on a regular basis. Thus we call on the regime to release arbitrarily detained persons and to grant access to international monitors, including the COI. And the COI also reported that Daesh, Jabhat al-Nusra, and armed opposition groups have killed and abuses detainees, which we also condemn.
The pernicious behavior of Daesh is barbaric and notorious, including murder, torture, rape, and enslavement of Yazidi women and girls, targeting members of religious minorities with a choice of conversion or death, and executing those based on their perceived sexual orientation. This was most recently and devastatingly evident in yesterday's horrific attacks by Daesh in both Homs and Damascus. We condemn those terrorist attacks in the strongest terms, and we extend our deepest condolences to the families of the more than 140 who were killed and we extend sincere wishes for a swift recovery to all of those injured.
I also want to address the systematic siege of communities, which has been one of the defining characteristics of this conflict, exacting a devastating toll on nearly a half million people - the majority of whom are trapped by government or pro-regime forces. Assistance is restricted to an additional 4 million people, a number which continues to increase. Last week, following the establishment of the International Syria Support Group - the ISSG task force - there was some progress on securing access for some assistance. We saw more than 100 trucks deliver assistance to five besieged communities, with one month's worth of food, nutrition items, and basic medical and relief supplies for approximately 80,000 people.
However, these initial locations and the number of recipients reached are not enough. Moreover, the Syrian government is reported to have removed some medical supplies, including vaccination supplies, from a convoy to Moadamiyya. Assistance, including medical supplies, must also be delivered to all besieged and hard to reach areas throughout the country, and assistance must be regular and sustained. In addition, with continued heavy fighting in Aleppo, and reports that the remaining supply route to eastern Aleppo has been cut off, we are deeply concerned that another besieged community is now in the making.
All this points to the need to seek a political transition - as I noted earlier - and to end the conflict as soon as possible, in addition to continuing to fight again our common threat, ISIL. Yet, the UN Security Council has demanded immediate humanitarian access in multiple UN Security Council resolutions, including 2254. These calls must be met without delay. Also outlined in UN Security Council resolution 2254 - and in furtherance of the February 11 decisions of the ISSG - today, we, the United States and Russia, as co-chairs of the International Syria Support Group and International Syria Support Group Ceasefire Task Force, announced the adoptions of the terms of the cessation of hostilities in Syria and proposed that the cessation of hostilities commence on February 27, 2016. Each and every country must work to meet our commitment to that cessation of hostilities. We are making significant progress towards that goal.
If we can make progress on these fronts and resume political negotiations as soon as possible, then we have a chance to pursue the roadmap to a political solution as laid out in 2254 and end the conflict. But this requires the concerted effort of the international community and, most importantly, parties on the ground. (...)
https://usun.state.gov/remarks/7147
Comment: Those reports, that of the UN Independent Commission, Amnesty International, HRW and MSF explain why the priority of a majority of Syrians is to get rid of the Assad regime, which is responsible for most of its suffering: over 200,000 dead (the other 50,000 are regime forces and supporters, victims of the so-called Islamic State or Jabhat Al-Nusrah, casualties in these two terrorist organizations, etc, untold destruction and million of refugees abroad and IDPs in Syria itself. The priority of the West is the IS as it is a danger not only in Syria and Iraq, but regionally and beyond. But the IS cannot be defeated by the sole Syrian Kurdish YPG, which cooperates with the Assad forces and Russia and antagonizes the Sunni Arab majority and has been attacking the Free Syrian Army. The anti-IS coalition cannot impose its priorities on Syrians but reconcile them with theirs. To defeat the IS in Syria, a transition away from the Assad regime along the lines of the Geneva I communiqué is essential.