TWN Info Service on UN Sustainable Development (Mar22/06)
11 March 2022
Third World Network

United Nations: Syrians staring into “a new abyss” as violence escalates
Published in SUNS #9532 dated 11 March 2022

Geneva, 10 Mar (Kanaga Raja) – The period from 1 July 2021 to 31 December 2021 saw significant levels of violence involving all parties to the conflict in Syria, according to the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic.

In its report (A/HRC/49/77) to the UN Human Rights Council, the Commission said that despite efforts under the auspices of the United Nations to facilitate a constructive international dialogue to achieve peace, there has been little progress to date, and calls for a nationwide ceasefire remain unheeded.

Five foreign military forces, as well as non-State armed groups and United Nations-designated terrorist entities, remain active in the Syrian Arab Republic, it added.

The Human Rights Council is currently holding its 49th regular session from 28 February to 1 April. The report by the Commission of Inquiry is scheduled to be presented at the Council on 18 March.

The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic is comprised of Paulo Sergio Pinheiro from Brazil (chair), Hanny Megally from Egypt and Lynn Welchman from the United Kingdom.

In some opening remarks at a press conference on the Commission’s report on 9 March, Commission chair Paulo Pinheiro said: “Some of you may be asking what lessons can be learnt from the Syria crisis – in particular the role of Russia – when we look at what is happening in Ukraine today.”

The failure to respect human rights and international humanitarian law in Syria has eroded respect for fundamental norms and exposed a deadly cynicism by armed actors, where might makes right and denial and obfuscation are employed to deflect blame or criticism and undermine accountability, he said.

Just look at the situation today for Syrians who have lived through a devastating ten years of conflict: Hundreds of thousands have been killed. More than half of the pre-war population have been displaced. More than 100,000 are missing or forcibly disappeared. Syria’s cities and infrastructure have been destroyed, he added.

He said that today the poverty rate in Syria is an unprecedented 90 percent – 14.6 million people in Syria depend on humanitarian aid.

Warring parties’ attempts to resolve the Syrian conflict militarily over the past decade have enabled the violation of nearly every core human right, the commission of almost every crime against humanity listed in the Rome statute and nearly every war crime, said Mr Paulo Pinheiro.

“We can only hope that world leaders are doing everything now that they can to avoid a similar fate for Ukraine.”

In a continuing pattern documented by the Commission for years, pro-Government forces – including Syrian and, since September 2015 also Russian forces, operating side by side – have continued to indiscriminately bomb densely populated areas in the northwest, he said.

Their attacks killed and injured civilians, also where Russian fixed-wing aircraft were observed over the targeted areas. Civilians were also targeted and killed by sophisticated Krasnopol-type precision-guided artillery attacks.

“We worry too about the negative consequences of the Ukraine crisis on Syria. Inflation is already skyrocketing, and the government has begun rationing essential commodities including fuel. Prices of imports have shot up and we should remember that most of Syria’s wheat import comes precisely from Ukraine or Russia.”

The Commission has also been concerned by recent reporting on systemic failures in investigations into possible war crimes and other incidents causing civilian harm in Syria in 2018-2019 by the United States-led coalition, Mr. Paulo Pinheiro said.

“We repeat our recommendation to the United States and to all parties to conduct credible, independent and impartial investigations into incidents entailing civilian casualties in which their forces are implicated to ensure those responsible for violations are held accountable, to ensure non-repetition, and to make their findings public.”

The plight of the Syrian people is not only a cautionary tale for other conflicts as it is often being framed in the media now, but a situation that still requires concerted diplomatic focus, humanitarian action, and compassion for all Syrians, whether inside Syria or as refugees or asylum seekers abroad, said Mr Paulo Pinheiro.

According to the report by the Commission, the reporting period saw significant levels of violence involving all parties to the conflict and a notable increase in pro-government air strikes and shelling in Idlib.

In particular, July and August marked an intensification of shelling south of the M4 highway.

In Dar’a al-Balad, a neighbourhood of Dar’a city, where opposition members had retained a degree of autonomy since “reconciliation” agreements were imposed in July 2018, intense fighting and a government siege that lasted 75 days temporarily displaced over 38,000 people.

Hostilities culminated in an agreement between government forces and opposition members, signed on 9 September, although insecurity continued. Additionally, pro-government air strikes targeted Operation Euphrates Shield areas in the north.

Northern areas also saw sporadic exchanges of shelling along the front lines between the Syrian Democratic Forces and the Syrian National Army, as well as by Turkish forces, and an increase in drone strikes by the latter.

The report said the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America also carried out strikes in the north, targeting individual members of Al-Qaida and Da’esh.

For its part, Israel also conducted air strikes across the country, including twice on the port in Latakia. In October, the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic accused Israel of killing by sniper fire a high-ranking Syrian official in Qunaytirah Governorate.

Deadly attacks by unconfirmed perpetrators involving improvised explosive devices remained frequent, causing civilian casualties, said the report.

On the regional front, there were efforts by some Member States to re-engage with the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic and restore diplomatic, security and economic ties.

Most, however, continued to call for a political solution to the conflict that would, inter alia, ensure the safe return of refugees. For some countries, these remain preconditions for the return of the Syrian Arab Republic to the League of Arab States.

The Syrian economy continued to spiral downwards. Approximately 90 per cent of the population now lives below the poverty line. In 2021, the Syrian pound lost close to 80 per cent of its value, and the Turkish lira – used in some northern regions – by 40 per cent. Food prices have increased by over 200 per cent, said the Commission.

It also said humanitarian needs across the country increased by more than one quarter since 2020 and are at their highest levels since the conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic began.

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 14 million people, including 6.1 million children, require assistance, while nearly 7 million people are internally displaced, including 3.1 million children.

The World Food Programme estimates that 12.4 million Syrians are food insecure, which represents an increase of 4.5 million in the last year alone.

Those in the north and north-east of the country faced an acute water crisis due to a combination of factors related to climate change, including low water levels of the Euphrates River, record low precipitation and higher than average temperatures.

Access to water has been further diminished as a result of widespread destruction of and damage to water facilities, at times deliberate, over the course of the 11-year conflict, including at the Uluk water station, in the north-east, and most recently in Idlib in early January 2022. It is estimated that the country has up to 40 per cent less drinking water today than it did a decade ago.

The country’s economic decline also negatively affected child rights, including the right to education and to freedom from child marriage and child labour. Parents were being forced to take their children out of school, in order to marry off their girls and send their boys to work, said the report.

The COVID-19 pandemic continued unabated during the reporting period. The country went through a fourth wave in conditions that included extremely low vaccination rates (3.2 per cent fully vaccinated by end November 2021) and limited intensive care facilities.

The Commission said that during the reporting period, there was marked progress on accountability.

In Germany, the Koblenz Higher Regional Court issued a landmark verdict on 13 January 2022 finding the former director of the Syrian intelligence service Branch 251 guilty of the crimes against humanity of murder, torture, deprivation of liberty, rape and sexual assault.

A court in the Netherlands convicted a former Jabhat al-Nusrah fighter for the murder of a Syrian soldier in 2012, sentencing him to 20 years of imprisonment.

Meanwhile, a German prosecutor indicted a Syrian doctor for crimes against humanity involving torture and murder at medical and detention facilities in Damascus and Homs.

In a positive development in the area of corporate accountability, the Court of Cassation in France overturned a 2019 appellate decision, allowing an indictment against the French multinational company Lafarge to proceed on charges of complicity in crimes against humanity for payments allegedly made to Da’esh.

The Commission said that it is concerned by recent reporting on systemic failures concerning investigations into possible war crimes and other incidents causing civilian harm in the Syrian Arab Republic by the United States-led coalition.

Whistle-blower allegations of a cover-up of a 2018 air strike in Baghuz that killed dozens of women and children and that could amount to a war crime led the United States Department of Defense to launch a review of the incident, it added.

Subsequent reporting alleged that hundreds of other reports of civilian casualties caused by United States-led coalition air strikes in the Syrian Arab Republic had been dismissed because members of the cells responsible for investigating reports lacked basic skills, situational awareness or the internal information necessary to accurately assess such claims.

The Commission noted that its own investigations into civilian harm, violations of international humanitarian law and potential war crimes have also been left without action by the members of the coalition and other Member States.

Referring to Syrian government controlled areas, the report said in July, a 10-week siege of Dar’a city’s southern Dar’a al-Balad neighbourhood began, accompanied by a pro-government forces military offensive that killed and injured civilians and resulted in the displacement of tens of thousands.

Hostilities culminated with a Russian-backed agreement on 9 September. In the weeks that followed, similar negotiations occurred in more than a dozen towns across western Dar’a Governorate. Reports indicated that government forces concluded “reconciliation agreements” with over 12,000 people and collected 1,700 weapons.

Government forces continued to arbitrarily detain persons, and to torture and ill-treat detainees, in some instances until death. Syrians who fled the war to other areas faced increasing administrative obstacles to disposing of and benefiting from their properties, including agricultural lands, said the Commission.

On the siege on Dar’a al-Balad, the Commission said that on 24 June, pro-government forces sealed off Dar’a al-Balad after local opposition groups refused to respond to the Government’s demands, which were to give up their weapons and, for some, to surrender or leave the area.

One entry point remained open, albeit only intermittently and subject to heavy restrictions. Residents had to pay bribes to cross. Humanitarian access was prevented throughout the siege, with only one delivery of aid, in mid-July.

Inhabitants reported very limited access to water, food and medicine, and no electricity. Access to health care was further disrupted when the only local medical facility, a makeshift clinic serving an estimated 50,000 people, was rendered inoperable by shelling on 27 July.

At the end of July, after negotiations to reach an agreement with the local factions failed, pro-government forces started shelling the area, and initiated a ground offensive, causing civilian casualties and material damage to residential areas, including to mosques, schools and the above-mentioned clinic, said the report.

The escalation in hostilities and widespread destruction of residential areas in and around Dar’a al-Balad led to the displacement of more than two thirds of its estimated population of 55,000 inhabitants by mid-August.

On 24 August, as residents of Dar’a al-Balad were trying to leave through the only open crossing point, tensions escalated. Following a verbal altercation, a civilian man was shot and killed by government forces, which also fired indiscriminately at the crowds gathered at the checkpoint, injuring many.

Highlighting the issue of arbitrary arrests and detention, the report said that arbitrary detention was documented in security branches and civil and military prisons.

Patterns of detention-related violations continue, as government authorities still disregard due process of law and torture detainees, including until death.

Many survivors of detention and relatives of victims were reluctant to provide testimony for fear of reprisals by government authorities.

Reports released in September and October 2021 described Syrian refugees being arbitrarily detained upon return, subjected to torture – including sexual violence – or disappeared.

Between July and December 2021, more than 30 former detainees, released between mid-2013 and July 2021, confirmed in interviews violations of due process and fair trial rights, including by military field and counter- terrorism courts, as well as torture, ill-treatment and deaths in detention between 2011 and 2021.

Families reported learning about the death of their detained relatives while consulting the civil registry. They often had to navigate complex bureaucratic procedures, exposing themselves to security risks and extortion in the effort to discover the fate of their missing loved ones.

Even in the rare cases where death notices were issued by the Government, the body was not handed over, the cause of death was not provided and the notification was issued years later, said the Commission.

The cases of detention described in its report confirm the continuation of patterns of crimes against humanity and war crimes related to torture and ill-treatment in detention, often leading to the detainee’s death.

All deaths in State custody must be the subject of an independent, transparent and comprehensive investigation and the failure to do so may in and of itself incur the responsibility of the State for the death of the victim, it added.

“Tens of thousands of individuals forcibly disappeared by government forces remain missing. Government forces continue to inflict cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment on the missing individuals’ relatives through the deliberate practice of concealing their fate and whereabouts.”

The report also highlighted several measures affecting property rights, saying that investigations continued into the usurpation of land and property rights of displaced owners, through public auctions in areas retaken by government forces, in Hama, Dayr al-Zawr and Idlib Governorates. Auctions became more formal and systematized, indicative of an emerging, deliberate governmental policy in this regard.

Auctions have been announced based on orders signed by governors. “Local committees”- at least at the district level – were created to conduct a land census to prepare auction lists, which are usually also signed by governors.

The resulting lists indicate information regarding the land, such as the location, surface area and type (sometimes also including an indication as to the crop and estimated production), and the owner’s name and status.

The landowner’s status (“not present”, “outside the country”, “armed man”, “army defector” or “terrorist”) reflects the fact that the majority of affected displaced owners currently reside outside government-controlled areas, including abroad.

A number of owners appearing on the lists explained to the Commission that they dare not return to tend to their land out of fear of being arrested.

The land targeted for auctions usually grows high-value crops, such as olive and pistachio trees, or is used for the cultivation of cotton, wheat and other cereals, or vegetables.

The auction winners pay for access to the fields for six months or a year or – as relates to trees – during the harvest, and this even if the official (absent) owner has continued to pay workers to take care of the trees over the year.

Relatives of the absent landowners have the possibility to apply to access a specific procedure and pay to prevent an auction, a prohibitively costly procedure.

Auction winners are usually high-ranking members of pro-government militias or other personalities with close links to government authorities, said the Commission.

Between July and December 2021, such auction lists documented by the Commission included more than 1,440 owners and 33,600 dunums of land in eight localities in Hama; more than 10,000 dunums of land in three localities in Dayr al-Zawr and at least 61,991 dunums of land in Idlib.

Almost all owners who spoke to the Commission mentioned that, while the surface area indicated in the lists amounted to only a small portion of their land, their entire property had been continuously occupied ever since.

The cases described above show that increasingly discriminatory impediments are being imposed on absent Syrians – displaced persons currently residing abroad or in areas that are not under the Government’s control – relating to their property, said the Commission.

The property rights of displaced persons are specifically protected under customary international humanitarian law and must be respected by all parties. International human rights law also guarantees that no one is to be arbitrarily deprived of their property.

Confiscation of private property by parties to the conflict, in particular when generating personal gain, may amount to pillage, which is a war crime, it added.

With regard to Idlib and western Aleppo, the report said that after a lull in violence following the 5 March 2020 ceasefire, hostilities intensified in the first half of 2021.

The frequency of attacks by pro-government forces in the north-west of the country further increased in the run-up to the summit between the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir V. Putin, and the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Sochi, Russian Federation, on 29 September 2021, although clashes and mutual shelling continued throughout the reporting period, causing further death and displacement.

On the conduct of hostilities, the report said between July and December 2021, 14 attacks by pro-government forces that killed and injured civilians across Idlib and surrounding areas were documented by the Commission.

The Commission said that it has addressed requests to the Government for information regarding the presence of legitimate military targets in all of those incidents, but to date the requests remain unanswered. One attack, carried out by United States forces, that caused civilian casualties was also documented.

“The use of precision-guided artillery shells by pro-government forces in the north-west was a persistent feature during this period, alongside the use of unguided artillery, more common in prior periods. Artillery shells with a guidance system, of the Krasnopol or Krasnopol-type, are launched from a standard artillery gun and are then guided to the precise target by a laser aimed at the target by a drone.”

The Commission documented five attacks consistent with the use of such weapons, featuring precise impacts on buildings on the first strike, the presence of drones confirmed by witnesses and flight observers, and reports that the munitions were fired from areas controlled by pro-government forces.

In three incidents – in Sarjah, Balshun and Kansafrah – remnants of Krasnopol-type guidance systems were observed following the attacks.

Precision artillery strikes were used against first responders in an incident on 17 July, when a civilian home was impacted twice, killing five people, including four children in Sarjah village.

The report said that air strikes also continued, causing civilian harm during the reporting period.

One attack on the morning of 11 November hit a residential building and a poultry farm between the town of Ma’arratmisrin and Idlib city, killing three children aged between 8 months and 7 years, and the parents of two of them, and injuring at least one other person.

In reference to the use of highly explosive unguided munitions in densely populated urban areas, the Commission said it has reasonable grounds to believe that pro-government forces have committed the war crime of launching indiscriminate attacks resulting in loss of life or injury to civilians.

Furthermore, through precision attacks that appear to have directly targeted first responders and a medical clinic, pro-government forces may have committed the war crimes of intentionally attacking medical personnel and of directing an attack against a medical facility.

In relation to incidents where a displaced persons camp and numerous civilian homes were precisely targeted without any apparent military objective present, pro-government forces may have committed the war crime of directing attacks against civilians, said the Commission.

The Commission also found that improvised explosive devices continued to indiscriminately kill people and cause material damage in northern Aleppo, including in and around the cities of Afrin, Bab, I’zaz and Jarabulus.

At least 35 incidents of shelling and improvised explosive devices were documented in the second half of 2021; the incidents caused 34 fatalities and more than 120 injuries.

The Commission documented nine improvised explosive device detonations between July and October 2021, which killed at least 18 people and injured dozens. Improvised explosive devices were detonated in crowded areas such as markets, busy streets and a fuel store, as well as on connecting roads.

The Commission said life in the north-east of the country remained insecure.

People living along the front lines between the Operation Peace Spring area, in the parts of Hasakah and Raqqah Governorates that are controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces, and in the northern part of Aleppo, were regularly caught in hostilities, and feared further escalations, including following announcements by Turkey in October 2021.

The situation was also volatile further south, particularly in Dayr al-Zawr Governorate, with continuous Da’esh attacks and counter-terrorism operations in response.

Fighting continued in and around the cities of Ayn Isa, Raqqah Governorate, and Tall Tamr, Hasakah Governorate, leading to deaths, injuries and ongoing displacement among civilians living close to the front lines inside territory controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces.

The Commission said it received reports of multiple drone strikes suspected to have been carried out by Turkey, consistent with Turkish authorities’ acknowledged targeting of “terrorists” in the Syrian Arab Republic.

The Commission said it further documented two suspected targeted drone strikes on towns within areas controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces that are very close to the border with Turkey. Individuals linked to the Kurdish authorities were apparently targeted.