(Photo: Scott Bobb/Voice of America News)
Elham Asaad Buaras
The US-led coalition, Syria and Russia might have committed war crimes, according to a report by the UN Commission of inquiry on Syria.
The 21-page report released on September 11, says the air raids by the US-led coalition did not, or failed to distinguish civilians from military targets.
“Launching indiscriminate attacks that result in death or injury to civilians amounts to a war crime in cases in which such attacks are conducted recklessly,” said the report.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), backed by the US, held large-scale operations in Syria which “had led to the near-complete destruction of towns and villages,” according to the report.
Turkey views the SDF as part of YPG, which is the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party or PKK, a proscribed terror group in Turkey. The Syrian Government and Russia were also condemned for their aggression in northwestern Idlib province of Syria.
Last September Turkey and Russia agreed to turn Idlib into a de-escalation zone in which acts of aggression are expressly prohibited. Syria, however, has consistently broken the terms of the cease-fire, launching frequent attacks inside the de-escalation zone.
These parties, in the UN report, were accused of targeting health facilities, schools, market areas and agricultural zones, which might amount to “war crimes.” Civilians are the ones bearing brunt of the aggression in Idlib by Syria and Russia and millions are today at risk of migrating to nearby countries, particularly Turkey, which is currently home to over 3.6 million Syrian refugees.
More than 1,000 civilians were killed in and around the Idlib demilitarised zone over the last four months, according to the UN which says further aggression in the city could trigger a humanitarian tragedy “graver than the one experienced in 2015,” referring to the mass influx of Syrian refugees to Turkey and Europe.
Syria has just emerged from a devastating civil war that began in 2011 when President Assad’s Government cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity. Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict, according to UN figures.
The report also noted that approximately 13 million people have become displaced – with 6.7 million of migration to abroad and 6.2 million of them turning into internally displaced persons.