Anjali Sharma
GG News Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, 12th March. UN rights investigators on Monday said that Syria is facing a wave of violence not seen in years that likely amounts to war crimes and intensifying.
UN Syria Commission of Inquiry reports to the Human Rights Council, warned that fighting escalated on 5 October last year, when consecutive explosions at a military academy graduation ceremony in government-controlled Homs killed 63 people, including 37 civilians.
The investigators said that Syrian Government and Russian forces “responded with bombardments” that struck at least 2,300 sites in opposition-controlled areas in the space of three weeks, “killing and injuring hundreds of civilians”.
They said in a statement that locations hit included “well-known and visible hospitals, schools, markets and camps for internally displaced persons” which may amount to war crimes.
The Commission of Inquiry, chairperson Paulo Pinheiro insisted that the Syrian people “cannot sustain” any more fighting, after 13 years of war which have left 16.7 million inside the country in need of humanitarian assistance the largest number of people in need since the start of the crisis.
“More than 90 per cent now live in poverty, the economy is in freefall amid tightening sanctions, and increased lawlessness is fuelling predatory practices and extortion by armed forces and militia,” Mr. Pinheiro explained.
Commissioner Hanny Megally said that Syria has used cluster munitions in densely populated areas, “continuing devastating and unlawful patterns that we have documented in the past,”.
“The October attacks resulted in some 120,000 people in fleeing, many of them previously displaced several times, including by the devastating earthquakes last February.”
Mr. Megally said it should be no surprise that the number of Syrians seeking asylum in Europe last October reached the highest level in seven years, with Syria remaining the world’s largest displacement crisis.
The commissioners said that since the start of the Gaza war, tensions have increased between some of the six foreign armies active in Syria, notably Israel, Iran and the US all raising concerns of a wider conflict.
The commission said that in northeast Syria, Turkish forces have accelerated operations against Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in retaliation for an attack claimed by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party in Ankara in October.
They stressed that Turkish aerial attacks on power plants deprived one million people of water and electricity for weeks, in violation of international humanitarian law.
The Commission’s report is to be presented to the Human Rights Council on Monday 18 March.
Comments are closed.