A report by the Syrian network for Human Rights (SNHR) revealed that five massacres were perpetrated by the parties to the conflict in Syria in the month of October.
The report notes that the first two years of the popular uprising saw the largest portion of ethnic and sectarian
cleansing massacres, where the Syrian regime and its militias were responsible for the majority of these massacres.
In mid-2013, Syrian regime forces started relying heavily on warplanes and they were also used later by international coalition forces and Russian forces. The wide use of aerial bombardment doubled the numbers of victims and caused huge destruction to the infrastructure, as one or two new massacres at least are recorded almost every day.
October saw a significant fall in terms of the scope of military operations by most of the parties to the conflict, except for international coalition forces and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) who escalated their attacks on the ISIS-held areas in east Syria.
The report documents five massacres in October, all of which took place in Deir Ez-Zour governorate. Of these, four massacres were by international coalition forces, bringing the total number of massacres for which international coalition forces have been responsible in Deir Ez-Zour governorate since the start of 2018 to 13.
The report documents no less than 211 massacres that have been perpetrated by the parties to the conflict in Syria since the start of 2018. In addition, the report documents no less than five massacres in October. The report uses the term “massacre” to refer to an incident in which five peaceful individuals or more are killed in the same attack.
Based on this definition, international coalition forces were responsible for four massacres in October, while ISIS perpetrated one massacre in the same month.
According to the victim documentation team at SNHR, the massacres documented this month have resulted in the killing deaths of 41 civilians, including 14 children and four women (adult female). This means that 44 percent of all victims were women and children, which is a considerably n alarmingly high percentage, and an indication that civilian residents were targeted in most of these massacres.
The report breaks down the death toll of October’s massacre. A total of 36 civilians were killed in the massacres perpetrated by international coalition forces, including 14 children and four women, with ISIS killing five civilians in the massacre they perpetrated.
The report stresses that Syrian-Russian alliance forces have violated Security Council resolutions 2139 and 2254 through indiscriminate attacks. Also, the Syrian and Russian regimes have violated Articles 7 and 8 of Rome Statute through acts of willful killing, as well as the rules of the international human rights law which guarantee the right to life. Given that these violations were committed in a non-international armed conflict, they qualify as war crimes.
The report notes that the attacks by Coalition forces (the international coalition and SDF) have caused collateral damages that involved loss of lives, injuries, or significant damages to civilian facilities. There are strong indicators suggesting that the damage was extremely excessive compared to the anticipated military advantage.
The report adds that the other parties carried out attacks that resulted in civilian deaths, confirming that these violations might constitute war crimes, but don’t qualify as crimes against humanity as with the Syrian regime and its pro-regime forces.
Comments About This Article
Please fill the fields below.