Press release (Link below to download full report):
 
Paris – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) states in its report released today that the Syrian regime committed a massacre in Ariha city, the largest since March 2020, killing 11 Syrian citizens, including four children, even as regime representatives were participating in the latest round of Constitutional Committee meetings, to shameful silence from the United Nations, adding that this massacre embodies the policy of the Syrian regime, ‘negotiating’ by terror, killing and enforced disappearance.
 
The 34-report page notes that the Syrian regime has used violence, threats and terror as a basic tool in all the rounds of negotiation it has participated in; over the past years, the regime has consistently followed the same policy of launching attacks on civilians and murdering political detainees during the negotiation rounds in Geneva, or during the rounds of talks on the Constitutional Committee. This shows the extent of the Syrian regime’s disregard for the negotiation process, and its belief that it is merely passing time before once again taking its place in the international arena.
As the report further reveals, only two days after the sixth round of the Constitutional Committee meetings were held, Syrian regime forces launched the largest military attack on northwest region of Syria since March 6, 2020, in terms of civilian casualties. The attack took place in the densely populated Ariha city, another clear indication of the Syrian regime’s indifference to the agreements that could result from these meetings.
 
The report documents the responsibility of the Syrian regime, with Russian support, for the attack on Ariha city in the southern suburbs of Idlib, highlighting the details of the ground attack. The report also refers to the statements of condemnation issued by international organizations and human rights bodies concerning this attack, as well as providing the record of the most notable violations committed by the Syrian-Russian alliance forces since March 6, 2020, (the date of entry into force of the Turkish-Russian ceasefire agreement) until October 28, 2021.
 
As the report reveals, on the morning of Wednesday, October 20, 2021, at around 08:01, Syrian regime artillery forces began bombarding the city, coinciding with a Russian reconnaissance aircraft flying over the area, and in conjunction with the students heading to their schools. The shelling lasted for about ten minutes, during which ten shells fell on separate areas in the city center, resulting in the deaths of 11 civilians, including four children and one woman (a teacher), and injured about 30 others, in addition to causing damage to four vital civilian facilities.
The report provides exclusive video footage from surveillance cameras that were close to the sites of the attacks, analyzes this footage and identifies the impact sites of most of the shells and the resulting casualties.
The report notes that the timing and intensity of the bombardment on an area of no more than 500 meters in diameter in the center of the city, which is devoid of any military features, is a deliberate act by the Syrian regime, with its aim being to cause the greatest number of civilian casualties, with the support of the Russian forces.
 
The report adds that the Ariha massacre is just one in a long series of violations committed by Syrian regime forces and regime’s allies in the Idlib region, one of the four de-escalation zones, which is also subject to the Russian-Turkish agreement – since March 2020. In this context, the report reveals that the attacks by Syrian-Russian alliance forces between March 6, 2020, and October 28, 2021, in northwest Syria have resulted in the deaths of 259 civilians, including 88 children and 41 women (adult female); 185 of the victims, including 60 children and 28 women, were killed at the hands of Syrian regime forces, while Russian forces killed 74 civilians, including 28 children and 13 women. The report also documents at least nine massacres during the same period, six of which were at the hands of Syrian regime forces and three at the hands of Russian forces, in addition to at least 60 attacks on vital civilian facilities, 51 of which were at the hands of Syrian regime forces, and nine at the hands of Russian forces
 
The report stresses that the attacks by the Russian/ Syrian military alliance included in this report have resulted in deaths of Syrian citizens, and in the injury and disability of many other people, as well as exacerbating the already extreme food and health-related suffering of the population, all of which add to the already catastrophic humanitarian situation in northwest Syria at various levels.
The report adds that the Syrian-Iranian-Russian alliance forces have unquestionably violated UN Security Council Resolutions No. 2139 and 2254 which ordered an end to indiscriminate attacks, and also violated international humanitarian law rules of distinction between civilians and combatants.
 
The report notes that neither the Russian or Syrian authorities have conducted any serious investigations into these attacks, or even into any other previous ones, with the Russian and Syrian leaderships, both military and political, bearing responsibility for these attacks based on the principle of command responsibility under international humanitarian law.
The report stresses that the Syrian regime does not care about the political transition process because this would lead to a transition from dictatorship to democracy.
 
The report calls on the UN Security Council to refer the Syrian case to the International Criminal Court and hold all those responsible accountable, while UNSC states’ veto power should be withheld when crimes against humanity and war crimes are committed. The report also calls on the UN Security Council to impose UN military and economic sanctions on the Syrian regime, especially the leaders involved in crimes against humanity and war crimes.
 
The report recommends that the international community should support the political transition process and put pressure on the parties to compel them to implement the political transition within a time period of no more than six months, and to renew pressure on the Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court.
The report adds that the Russian and Iranian regimes should face heavy fines and financial penalties for the destruction of vital buildings and facilities in Syria. These sums should be reflected in the reparations for the victims and the restoration of the facilities and buildings whose destruction the two regimes contributed to.
 
The report further recommends that the Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI) should work on identifying the responsibility of individuals within the Syrian regime who are involved in crimes against humanity and war crimes, publish their names to expose them to international public opinion and end all dealings with them at every political and economic level.
The report also calls on the UN Envoy to Syria to clearly assign responsibility to the party responsible for the death of the political process, and to disclose to the Syrian people the timing of the end of the political transition process, in addition to making several more recommendations.
 

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Press release (Link below to download full report):
 
Paris – The Syrian Network for Human Rights notes in its report released today that Russian and Syrian regime forces have committed violations that constitute war crimes during ongoing unlawful attacks on and around Jabal al Zaweya area, adding that around 61 civilians have been killed to date, 33 of them by Russian forces, including 20 children, with 13 vital facilities also targeted, between June and September 2021.
 
The report notes that SNHR documented a sudden military escalation by the Syrian-Russian alliance forces since the beginning of June 2021, targeting Jabal al Zaweya area and its surroundings in northwest Syria which remain outside the Syrian regime’s control, mostly by ground attacks on civilian areas, causing civilian casualties and significant material damage to vital facilities. The report explains that this came after a period of relative calm that lasted for months in the wake of the Turkish-Russian ceasefire agreement concluded in March 2020, which did not prevent the Syrian regime and its Iranian ally from carrying out ground bombardment. The report further reveals that 83 civilians, including 44 children and 17 women (adult female), were killed as a result of military attacks by the Syrian-Russian alliance forces on Jabal al Zaweya and its vicinity between March 6, 2020, and September 1, 2021.
 
The 25-page report documents details of the unlawful military attacks by the Syrian-Russian alliance forces between June 5, 2021, and September 1, 2021, and the casualties these attacks caused, as well as of the targeting of vital facilities and residential neighborhoods and the accompanying destruction. The report relies on SNHR’s daily and continuous monitoring process, as well as on direct testimonies from survivors, relatives of victims, aid workers and media activists, with this report providing eight of these testimonies.
 
The report underlines the importance of the Jabal al Zaweya area, providing details on the reality of control by the parties to the conflict over the area, adding that the Syrian-Russian alliance forces have violated the ceasefire and launched military attacks on and around the Jabal al Zaweya area, detailing the most prominent features that distinguished the latest campaign on Jabal al Zaweya and its vicinity since the beginning of June 2021 from the previous campaigns. The report also documents the intense bombardment following the flight of reconnaissance planes, which concentrates on targeting gatherings of people, the use of higher-quality weapons in terms of their accuracy in hitting the target and in the great destruction caused to the target site, with the weapons being laser circuit-guided, and the use of intense missile bombardment. As the report reveals, other features distinguishing the latest campaign from preceding ones are the deployment of munitions whose use SNHR hadn’t previously documented in the Syrian conflict, with an unprecedented intensity, and the difficulty in definitively identifying the responsibility for some of the attacks between Russia or the Syrian regime, due to the presence of launching platforms belonging to the Syrian regime, and others belonging to Russia, with these platforms moving from one place to another, as well as a noticeable increase in use of the double-tap strike policy in dozens of incidents.
 
The report refers to international and human rights condemnations of the bombardment of Jabal al Zaweya area and its vicinity, noting that these condemnations received no response and failed to generate any investigations by Russia or the Syrian regime.
 
The report documents the deaths of 61 civilians, including 33 children and 12 women, one medical worker, one media worker, and one Civil Defense worker in the attacks launched by the Syrian-Russian alliance forces on Jabal al Zaweya and its vicinity, between June 5, 2021, and September 1, 2021; 28 of the victims, including 13 children, seven women, and one medical worker, were killed at the hands of Syrian regime forces, while Russian forces killed 33 civilians, including 20 children, five women, one media worker, and one Civil Defense worker.
 
The report also documents five massacres during the same period, two of which were at the hands of Syrian regime forces and three at the hands of Russian forces.
 
During the same period, the report documents at least 13 attacks on vital civilian facilities at the hands of Syrian-Russian alliance forces in Jabal al Zaweya area and its vicinity, 12 of which were at the hands of Syrian regime forces, and one at the hands of Russian forces.
 
The report stresses that the attacks by the Russian/ Syrian military alliance included in this report have resulted in deaths of Syrian citizens, and in the injury and disability of many other people, as well as exacerbating the already extreme food and health-related suffering of the population, all of which add to the already catastrophic humanitarian situation in northwest Syria at various levels.
 
The report adds that the Syrian-Iranian-Russian alliance forces have unquestionably violated UN Security Council Resolutions No. 2139 and 2254 to stop indiscriminate attacks, and also violated International Humanitarian Law rules of distinction between civilians and combatants.
 
The report notes that neither the Russian or Syrian authorities have conducted any serious investigations into these attacks, or even into any other previous ones, with the Russian and Syrian leaderships, both military and political, bearing responsibility for these attacks based on the principle of command responsibility under international humanitarian law.
 
The report calls on the UN Security Council to refer the Syrian case to the International Criminal Court and hold all those responsible accountable, while UNSC states’ veto power should be withheld when crimes against humanity and war crimes are committed. The report also calls on the UN Security Council to impose UN military and economic sanctions on the Syrian regime, especially the leaders involved in crimes against humanity and war crimes.
 
The report recommends that the international community should support the political transition process and put pressure to compel the parties to implement the political transition within a time period of no more than six months, and to renew pressure on the Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court.
 
The report adds that the Russian and Iranian regimes should face heavy fines and financial penalties for the destruction of vital buildings and facilities in Syria. These sums should be reflected in the reparations for the victims and the restoration of the facilities and buildings whose destruction the two regimes contributed to.
The report also recommends that the Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI) should work on identifying the responsibility of individuals within the Syrian regime who are involved in crimes against humanity and war crimes, publish their names to expose them to international public opinion and end all dealings with them at every political and economic level, in addition to making several more recommendations.
 

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Press release:
 
The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) shows in its latest report that destroying Ma’aret al Numan and Saraqeb cities and displacing their residents is a clear example of the Syrian regime’s tactics in its recent military campaign between early December 2019 and March 2020, noting that destroying cities and their environs, displacing their people, and seizing their properties is a malicious and criminal tripartite strategy by the Syrian regime intended to punish those demanding or dreaming of political change.
 
The 25-page report outlines the background of the destruction and forced displacement inflicted by the Syrian regime in and around Idlib, noting that the regime and its Russian and Iranian allies have by far exceeded the other parties to the conflict in forcible displacement of populations due to several reasons, the foremost of which is the use of the air force, violent barbaric shelling and the population’s fear of brutal reprisals, of arrest, torture or illegal conscription into the Syrian regime’s forces. The report points out that in the first months of the military campaign which began on April 26, 2019, the population of large areas was displaced, before the Syrian regime and its allies intensified their military attacks at the end of 2019 on and around Idlib governorate. During this campaign they targeted Ma’aret al Numan city, Saraqeb and their environs, along with the northwestern suburbs of Aleppo.
 
The report adds that the region has witnessed five cease-fire agreements; the first of these was declared on August 1, 2019, while the latest one began on March 6, 2020. All these ceasefire agreements failed completely to achieve any actual cessation of combat operations. On the contrary, the report notes, each agreement was followed by a military escalation more violent than its predecessor, which led to the Syrian regime advancing on the ground.
 
The report provides an analysis of the destruction caused to Ma’aret al Numan city by the bombardment operations that it was exposed to since April 2019; this bombardment was focused particularly on the southern districts of the city, with the report using the help of high-resolution satellite imagery showing the entire area of the city. The report also provides several visual guides to the sites chosen to serve as illustrative examples of the total destruction of the city, as well as providing an additional analysis of destruction in Saraqeb city.
 
This report notes that the Syrian regime and its Russian ally carried out almost daily bombing operations on Ma’aret al Numan city, which were not limited to the last campaign that started at the end of 2019, but intensified in power over time and were more focused during the last campaign, with the process of destroying the city and displacing its people, according to the report, dating back to April 2019.
 
As the report states, the displacement of the people of the cities of Ma’aret al Numan and Saraqeb is organically linked to the process of destruction inflicted in these military operations, because destroying cities and towns has been a deliberate strategic objective of the Syrian regime and its allies in order to force the people towards surrender, displacement, and humiliation, since IDPs are usually the poorest members of society, with the loss of their homes, possessions, and any commercial properties leaving them destitute.
 
Fadel Abdul Ghany, Chairman of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, says:
 
“The Syrian regime hasn’t just displaced hundreds of thousands through brutal violence, but pursued them through relentless bombardment, targeting camps, schools and gathering places where they were located. The regime also sought, along with its Russian ally, to obstruct and plunder desperately needed humanitarian aid by canceling the extension of the cross-border aid resolution, and finally by passing laws that contravene the most basic human rights principles with the objective of controlling their property and lands. This sequence of crimes is an essential part of the Syrian regime’s strategy in the issue of forced displacement in Syria.”
 
As the report further reveals, the Syrian regime’s and its Russian ally’s plan in all the besieged areas often starts with targeting vital facilities, with this barbaric strategy depending on forcing people to despair and to flee into displacement, with the report noting that when medical facilities, Civil Defense centers, and markets are bombed, this sends a clear, murderously violent message telling the people that they have no option but to surrender or leave.
 
The report documents at least 882 attacks by Russian-Syrian alliance forces in and around Idlib since April 26, 2019, up until May 29, 2020, including attacks on 220 places of worship, 218 educational facilities, 93 medical facilities, 86 Civil Defense centers, and 52 markets.
 
The report documents 30 cluster munitions attacks in and around Idlib during the same period, 27 of which were carried out by Syrian Regime forces, resulting in the deaths of 38 civilians, including 18 children and nine women (adult female), and injuring 36 people, while Russian forces carried out the remaining three attacks.
 
The report notes that since April 26, 2019, up until May 29, 2020, the Syrian regime carried out at least 21 incendiary weapon attacks and at least seven nail missile attacks, in addition to using chemical weapons in one attack, while the Syrian regime’s helicopters and fixed-wing warplanes dropped at least 4,849 barrel bombs on Idlib region in northwest Syria during the same period.
 
The report further notes that the investigation carried out by the Internal Board of Inquiry established by the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, on August 1, 2019, to investigate the attacks that occurred in northwest Syria, which was issued on April 6, 2020, confirmed four incidents that occurred in the Idlib region after the military campaign began on April 26, 2019, and confirmed the Syrian regime’s implication in them.
 
The report cites Ma’aret al Numan city as a study model to demonstrate the true scope of the destruction that took place in the cities throughout the latest campaign that started in early December 2019, due to its being the largest and most populous city in the areas that the Syrian regime and its allies controlled during the last campaign, which lasted until March 2020. The report relies on satellite images taken on February 27, 2020, that is, after the Syrian regime and its allies took control of the city, noting that SNHR identified numerous points of destruction in the city, totaling approximately 770 points in all, 15 of which were of completely destroyed buildings, 716 of buildings which sustained average damage, and 36 points of buildings which sustained minor damage. The report further notes that according to the calculations conducted by the work team of the ratio of the points of destruction to the area of the inhabited city that the team analyzed, which is approximately 8.5 square kilometers (850 hectares), concluding that each one- square kilometer area contains 90 points that have been destroyed (9 points in every 10 hectares), meaning that at least two percent of the city’s area is completely destroyed, and approximately 40 percent of it is partially destroyed.
 
The report emphasizes that the destruction that afflicted Ma’aret al Numan city is not an isolated case, meaning that it is quite possible to compare it to the various other cities and towns where the Syrian regime has seized control. In this context, the report cites another city, Saraqeb, as another model that demonstrates that the destruction of cities and towns and the displacement of their people are goals in themselves for the Syrian regime in order to inflict the most severe types of punishment possible on anyone seeking or supporting political change and freedom.
 
The report stresses that the Syrian regime’s and its allies’ continuous bombardment over many months, has consistently targeted vital civilian facilities and residential neighborhoods, with the regime and its allies not focusing this bombardment against areas containing combatants, but rather using a strategy of indiscriminate and ferocious bombing, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. The bombardment also causes terror among the population of people of brutal reprisals. All of these factors led to the population of other areas fleeing as soon as the forces of the Syrian regime and its allies approached them, a pattern which further undermines the Syrian regime’s implausible claims to be ridding Syria of terrorists and protecting its people.
 
As the report reveals, the bombing and destruction carried out by Syrian Regime forces has caused the displacement of nearly one million people since December 2019, due to the Syrian regime and its allies taking control of new cities and towns in the southern suburbs of Idlib and the northwestern suburbs of Aleppo.
 
The report further notes that the terrible living conditions IDPs suffer in light of the inadequacy of the humanitarian response and the high population density, especially in the regular and informal camps and shelters that are wholly insufficient for housing, mean that IDPs are one of the groups most vulnerable to infection with the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
The report adds that after destroying buildings and whole neighborhoods and displacing their residents comes the third part of the regime’s campaign of dispossession and humiliation against Syrian citizens, namely passing laws giving the Syrian regime and its allies total possession of and power over the property of the displaced people. The report outlines a number of relevant laws and decrees enacted by the Syrian regime since 2012, noting that they violate basic human rights and the Syrian constitution.
 
The report calls on the UN Security Council to issue a binding resolution that prevents and punishes the crime of enforced displacement, compels the cessation of enforced displacement, and explicitly provides for the right of forcibly displaced people to return safely to their homes, and receive reparation for what they have suffered, and to compel the Syrian regime to stop its settlements and the population replacements it carries out in cities and neighborhoods whose residents have been displaced; that is to say, forced displacement threatens the region and Syrian territory, destabilizing security and stability.
 
The report further calls on the OHCHR to assist in the building of a central housing and real estate database in Syria, with the aim of achieving reparations, implementing voluntary repatriation programs and ensuring restitution of housing, land and real estate in accordance with the UN Principles on Housing and Property Restitution for Refugees and Displaced Persons – Pinheiro Principles, to prepare a special report on destroying buildings, shops and vital facilities in northwest Syria, and to report to the Security Council on the seriousness and sensitivity of the issue of property destruction.
 
The report also provides a set of recommendations to the UN Envoy to Syria, and to the Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI), as well as to the Russian regime.
 

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Press release:
 
In its report released today, the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) calls on the United Nations investigators in northwest Syria to finally acknowledge the responsibility of the Russian forces for the bombing of a school complex in Qal’at al Madiq, after the report of the Internal United Nations Board of Inquiry in northwest Syria was released.
 
As the nine-page report notes, the Syrian internal armed conflict has seen frequent targeting of medical facilities, as well as other vital civilian facilities such as schools, Civil Defense headquarters, places of worship, etc., by Syrian regime and Russian forces in a manner unseen since the Second World War, with this repeated heinous bombing of medical facilities, and vital civilian facilities encouraged, as the report further notes, by the Syrian regime’s total impunity due to Russia’s veto in the UN Security Council, with regime forces sensing that they have carte blanche to perpetrate any and all crimes, and can bomb what they want and behave however they wish. Regime personnel even add insult to injury by repeating clearly false accusations that these medical facilities and schools are no longer performing their function and are in the hands of terrorists. After the Russian military intervention in Syria began in September 2015, Russia’s forces immediately adopted the same approach as their Syrian Regime peers, including bombing medical facilities and other vital civilian facilities.
 
As the report details, at least 43 attacks on medical facilities were carried out by Russian forces Syria since the Sochi Agreement entered into force in September 2018 until April 17, 2020, while the total record of attacks carried out by Russian forces on medical facilities in all Syrian governorates since Russia’s military intervention in Syria began on September 30, 2015, had reached 207 as of April 17, 2020.
 
While the report acknowledges the establishment of the Deconfliction Mechanism to Avoid Targeting Medical Facilities by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), it adds that despite this, there is a fundamental imbalance in the work of the humanitarian deconfliction mechanism, particularly in light of the Syrian and Russian regimes’ continuing bombing of medical facilities even though these are listed within the mechanism. In this context, the report also notes that it identified seven medical facilities that had been targeted on 12 separate occasions by Syrian Regime forces or Russian regime forces, despite these facilities being listed within the deconfliction mechanism.
 
The report further notes that the UN Secretary-General has stated that he would establish an “Internal Board of Inquiry” to investigate attacks targeting medical and vital facilities that occurred in northwest Syria since the implementation of the Sochi Agreement on September 17, 2018, with the Board issuing its report on April 6, 2020.
 
The report outlines key points concerning the Internal United Nations Board of Inquiry’s report, which was supposed to investigate seven incidents; ultimately, however, it was able to investigate only five of these. The Board accused the Syrian regime of responsibility for four of the five attacks it investigated, while for the fifth incident, the Board blamed the extremist Hay’at Tahrir al Sham group, or one of the Armed Opposition factions.
 
The report commends some of the positive points included in the Board’s report, such as its clearly demonstrating that the Syrian regime obstructed investigations by preventing the Board of Inquiry from entering the country, in addition to its confirmation that the health care services were being provided in the medical facilities that were bombed, which refutes the Syrian regime’s false statement that these health-care facilities had been overrun by terrorist groups, and that they no longer served their original purpose.
 
The report further notes some of the negative points of the Board’s report, such as its failure to assign direct responsibility to Russian forces for the bombing of some medical facilities, referring only to the Syrian regime and “its allies” without naming these allies, in addition to voicing disappointment at the Board’s recommendations contained there which were generally inadequate, particularly with regard to the request from the deconfliction mechanism to share the data of medical facilities with the Syrian regime, with this request lending unwarranted legitimacy to the Syrian regime which is the main party accused, as SNHR’s report notes, in approximately 540 operations targeting medical facilities since March 2011 to date.
 
The report further calls on all boards of inquiry to be strengthened by the option of imposing punitive mechanisms in the event that the state’s ruling authorities refuse to meet their requirements, such as preventing them from entering the country and questioning and rejecting their work as the Syrian regime has done; among the punitive mechanisms suggested in this case is that the United Nations should impose sanctions on the Syrian regime, including economic, political, and possibly military sanctions.
 
The report stresses that the primary task of the boards of inquiry is to reveal to the oppressed people which party or parties are responsible for killing their children and families and bombing their medical and other vital facilities. This being the case, the report notes that the failure to name the party that committed the violation or crime is considered a profound and fundamental failure in the work of the boards of inquiry, rather than a secondary failure.
 
The report recommends that further work is urgently required to find an effective mechanism for protecting medical and vital civilian facilities from brutal bombing operations aimed at destroying them and denying them their ability to function in carrying out humanitarian work as quickly as possible. The Syrian and Russian regimes’ targeting of medical facilities in northwest Syria, and in areas that were outside the control of the Syrian regime previously, such as the Eastern Ghouta, Darayya, Daraa, etc., has had an impact over the capabilities of the Syrian state’s health care system, making the country far more vulnerable to the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic among the Syrian people.
 
Finally, the report calls on the United Nations Secretariat to make greater efforts to prevent UNSC members’ use of their veto to protect any regime, such as Syria’s, which commits crimes against humanity and war crimes.
 

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Press release:
In its latest report released today, the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) reveals that the Syrian regime has used cluster munitions several times against residential neighborhoods in and around Idlib governorate, noting that the use of these weapons constitutes war crimes. The report documents four cluster munition attacks since the start of the latest offensive in December 2019, two of which were against schools.
 
The 13-page report makes reference to the SNHR database that contains numerous reports documenting cluster munitions attacks launched by Syrian-Russian alliance forces, including details of the incidents documented, such as the dates, times and location of the attacks, the toll of the dead and injured, and the types of munition used, with SNHR having monitored most of the types of missiles and shells used and the type of submunitions contained in them, as well as having determined the number of these submunitions contained in every type of cluster munition; this exhaustive documentation means we have acquired a detailed understanding of the number of submunitions dispersed in these attacks in Syria, their distribution areas and the areas that were subjected to the largest scale of attacks. The SNHR database has been created through contact with eyewitnesses and survivors of attacks, as well as through building up a massive collection of photos and videos, in addition to other evidence.
 
Fadel Abdul Ghany, Chairman of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, says:
“Because the Syrian regime has been immune from accountability due to its Russian ally’s status as a permanent member of the Security Council, the door is open for it to use whatever weapons it desires in an internationally prohibited manner against populated areas. The children and people of Syria have suffered hundreds of cases of limb amputation and disability because of the cluster munitions use by Syrian/Russian regime forces on a horrendous scale and intensity and over large areas; we are in the process of creating a comprehensive map illustrating the locations of all these uses of cluster munitions in order to warn civilians and children of their presence.”
 
The report highlights the terrible reality of the use of cluster munitions in the northwest region of Syria since the start of the most recent military escalation which has affected several areas, villages and towns in the suburbs of Idlib and Aleppo, and has caused the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people since December 1, 2019, up to February 25, 2020. The report also includes the record of the use of cluster munitions by Syrian-Russian alliance forces since the first documented use of these munitions in July 2012 until February 25, 2020.
 
The report details the nature of cluster munitions which consist of hollow weapons designed to explode in the air and disperse large numbers of bomblets or submunitions over a large area; these bomblets are lethal in their implications, which go beyond the era of war and conflict. In addition to the victims killed as a result of the explosion of cluster munitions at the time of the attack, between approximately ten and 40 percent of these munitions remain unexploded, turning them into live landmines that kill or maim civilians, with hundreds of shrapnel pieces penetrating the bodies of those injured, and potentially leading to a need for amputation of limbs, damage to bodily organs, and rupturing of veins and arteries.
 
The report notes that these remnants, which are still extensively widespread across Syria, constitute a major obstacle to the return of displaced persons and the movement of aid workers and Civil Defense rescue personnel and their vehicles, as well as constituting a threat to the process of reconstruction and development.
 
The report records at least 492 cluster munition attacks between the first documented use of these weapons in July 2012 and February 25, 2020. The Syrian regime carried out 248 of these attacks, while Russian forces carried out a further 236 attacks, and eight attacks were carried out by Russian/ Syrian forces without accurately specifying the responsible party. The report notes that these cluster munition attacks launched by the Syrian-Russian alliance resulted in the deaths of 1,030 civilians, including 382 children and 217 women (adult female), and also caused injuries to approximately 4,350 civilians, many of whom have undergone amputations of limbs and require prosthetic limbs and a series of rehabilitation and support operations as a result.
The report also reveals that at least 357 civilians, including 107 children and 31 women (adult female) were killed as a result of the explosion of submunitions left over from previous cluster munition attacks.
 
The report notes that the objective of Syrian-Russian alliance forces in using cluster munitions is to completely paralyze life in the areas under attack. Meanwhile, civilians living in areas affected by cluster attacks will not be able to live in safety until the lethal bomblet remnants of these munitions in the areas around their homes, and in their streets, markets and farmlands are identified and completely cleared. Therefore, most of the residents of areas that are targeted by cluster attacks are subjected to forced displacement due to the impossibility of life and maintaining a feasible livelihood in these areas.
 
The report stresses that the violent military attacks using various munitions, primarily cluster munitions, and the military advance of Syrian-Russian alliance forces on the ground, are the most prominent causes of forced displacement which has affected more than 900,000 people since December 1, 2019, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
 
The report documents at least four cluster munition attacks between December 1, 2019, and February 25, 2020, carried out by Syrian Regime forces in Idlib governorate. These attacks have resulted in the deaths of 12 civilians, including seven children and two women (adult female), and injured 27 civilians, including two attacks which targeted educational facilities and caused injuries to students and teachers.
 
The report stresses that the use of cluster munitions by Syrian Regime forces led by Lieutenant General Bashar al Assad, as well as by Russian forces, violates both the principles of distinction and proportionality in international humanitarian law and is considered a war crime, noting that cluster munitions have been used by Syrian Regime forces against civilian targets, rather than being directed at serving a specific military purpose, and thus that these attacks constitute war crimes.
 
The report calls on the UN Security Council to adopt a special resolution banning the use of cluster munitions in Syria, similar to its prohibition on the use of chemical weapons, to provide advice on how to remove the remnants of such dangerous weapons, and to immediately and urgently intervene to protect the Syrian people from such attacks by the ruling authority, which constitute war crimes.
 
The report also presents a set of recommendations to the UN Human Rights Council, the International Commission of Inquiry (COI), the High Commissioner for Human Rights, as well as calling on the Russian government to immediately end the production of cluster munitions and stop using them in Syria, to start destroying its stockpiles of these weapons, and to accede to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use of Cluster Munitions, to publish detailed maps of locations where cluster munition attacks have been launched.
Finally, the report recommends that the United Nations Children’s Fund should explain the danger of the Syrian regime and its Russian ally’s use of cluster munitions to the Syrian people’s children, today and in the future.
 

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Press release:
 
In its latest report released today, the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) reveals that Syrian-Russian alliance forces have targeted 67 medical facilities in northwest Syria since April 26, 2019, with SNHR calling on the United States of America to intervene to stop Russian war crimes and bombardment of medical facilities.
 
The 28-page report notes that Syrian-Russian-Iranian alliance forces are by far the primary perpetrators in the targeting of medical facilities over Syria in the last nine years, mainly because of their use of air power, which has led to the partial or total destruction of medical centers and field hospitals, medical equipment, and stores of medicines and generators supplying these facilities, leading to the facilities’ permanent or temporary closure, as well as leading to further trauma for countless wounded or ill people.
 
The report outlines the historical context of recent events in the northwest region of Syria and the agreements the area has been subject to since last April 26, noting that every agreement was followed by an escalation in military operations by Syrian-Russian alliance forces, with the report stressing that the region does not receive international attention from media and human rights bodies at any level equivalent to the massive and unprecedented scale and breadth of human suffering.
 
Fadel Abdul Ghany, Chairman of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, says:
“After the Security Council’s failure to protect the medical facilities in Syria from brutal Russian bombing, there is no hope for ending these ongoing war crimes except through the establishment of an international civilized humanitarian coalition led by the United States of America, European states, Canada, and Australia that aims to protect civilians and stop the bombing of medical facilities. Without such action, no amount of reports and condemnations will have any effect, and crimes against humanity and war crimes will continue to be committed against the Syrian people, constituting a shameful stain on modern history, with those states which claim to uphold the rule of law and to stand for civilized values bearing the responsibility more than others.”
 
The report lists the lackluster and largely absent international efforts to deter Russian forces from targeting medical facilities, stressing that the blatant and persistent shortcomings of the international community in failing to respond to these crimes have forced many medical organizations to stop work in some of their medical facilities in order to ensure the safety of medical personnel and patients, with these events taking place amid a catastrophic situation of displacement and outbreaks of illness and disease caused by massive overcrowding and freezing subzero winter temperatures which have increased the number of deaths due to cold and diseases.
 
The report highlights the record of attacks by Syrian-Russian alliance forces against medical facilities in northwest Syria that occurred between the beginning of the military campaign on April 26, 2019, and February 18, 2020, which includes bombings targeting medical facilities with no military installations or equipment nearby, and other attacks that targeted medical facilities whose work had already been suspended for fear of being shelled and due to the displacement of the residents of the area, noting that many facilities have been subjected to more than one attack, with each attack documented as a separate violation.
 
As the report states, at least 67 medical facilities were subjected to approximately 88 attacks by Syrian-Russian alliance forces between April 26, 2019, and February 18, 2020, 52 of which were carried out by Syrian Regime forces, and 36 by Russian forces.
The report reveals that, of the 67 medical facilities that have been bombed, seven of these medical facilities have been bombed 12 times, despite these facilities being listed within the humanitarian deconfliction mechanism.
In the period covered by the report, SNHR has documented Syrian regime and Russian forces’ conducting successive air strikes with short time intervals between each airstrike, ranging from minutes (a double-tap strike), to intervals of a few days’ duration. Some incidents also saw successive attacks by both Russian and Syrian regime warplanes on the same medical facility, either within minutes of each other, or within a few days of each other.
 
As the report states, the military escalation by Syrian-Russian alliance forces on northwest Syria has also resulted in the deaths of at least 19 medical personnel, nine of whom were killed by Syrian Regime forces, while the other 10 were killed by Russian forces.
 
As the report explains, the Syrian regime, which has committed grave crimes and violations against Syrian civilians for nine years to date, has also consistently failed to respond to any of the demands of the International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, or to those of the High Commission for Human Rights, or even to Security Council resolutions. The Security Council, which was supposed to take collective measures and action under Articles 41 and 42 of the Charter of the United Nations, also failed because of the immunity granted by Russia to the Syrian regime, with Russia routinely using its veto in the case of the Syrian regime, which not only failed to abide by the responsibility for the protection of civilians, but committed the most egregious violations against them, reaching the level of crimes against humanity, and extermination by torture within detention centers.
 
The report further states that the carnage that has continued to take place in Syria is represented not only by one massacre or one violation but by industrial-scale killings and torture, sexual violence, enforced disappearances, the use of chemical weapons and barrel bombs, and besieging civilians. The report quotes a report issued by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty in December 2001, which stated: “The Security Council should take into account in all its deliberations that, if it fails to discharge its responsibility to protect in conscience-shocking situations crying out for action, concerned states may not rule out other means to meet the gravity and urgency of that situation”
The report further notes that at the 2005 Summit, states unanimously agreed that each country had a responsibility to protect its population from crimes against humanity and war crimes. This responsibility entails the prevention of such crimes, the prevention of incitement to commit them by all possible means, and when the state clearly fails to protect its population from egregious crimes, or itself is committing such crimes as in the case of the Syrian regime, it is the responsibility of the international community to intervene to take protective measures in a collective, decisive and timely manner.
 
The report stresses that Syrian and Russian forces have violated Security Council resolutions 2139, 2254 and 2286, which call for an end to indiscriminate attacks, as well as Security Council resolution 2286, which calls for an end to violations and abuses committed in armed conflicts against medical personnel and humanitarian personnel, noting that most of the attacks targeted unarmed civilian personnel, bombardment has caused incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians or serious damage to civilian objects, adding that there are very strong indications suggesting that the damage was exceptionally excessive compared to the anticipated military benefit.
 
The report recommends the UN Security Council to take further action after resolutions 2139 and 2254, having failed to impose any obligation to stop indiscriminate shelling which must be adhered to by all parties to the conflict, as well as to abide by the rules of international humanitarian law.
 
The report also presents a set of recommendations to the International Community, to OHCHR, to the Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI), and to the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM), as well as calling on the European Union and the United States of America to support the International Impartial Mechanism established by General Assembly resolution 71/248 of December 21, 2016, to open the courts of local states which have the principle of universal jurisdiction, and to prosecute war crimes committed in Syria.
 

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The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) reveals in its report released today that at least 87 civilians have been killed since the start of the Russian-Turkish ceasefire agreement on January 12, 2020, noting that the continuation of the Constitutional Committee’s work makes no sense in light of the Syrian regime’s continuous crimes against humanity.
 
The 15-page report notes that since April 26, 2019, northwest Syria has seen a military escalation by Syrian-Russian alliance forces, which is the most violent to date compared to previous military campaigns seen in the region. In this time, the report notes, the region witnessed the declaration of four ceasefire agreements, stressing their failure in stopping military attacks and indiscriminate shelling.
 
This report includes a documentary record of the air attack launched by the Syrian regime’s fixed-wing warplanes on the east of Idlib city on January 15, 2020, and outlines the record of massacres committed by Syrian-Russian alliance forces since April 26, 2019, until January 27, 2020.
 
Fadel Abdul Ghany, Chairman of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, says:
“Syrian Regime forces committing a massacre of this magnitude in Idlib three days after the alleged ceasefire agreement starkly affirms the impossibility of controlling the brutal Syrian regime with any kind of agreements including those in which its Russian ally is a direct party, and provides additional evidence that the Constitutional Committee can never succeed in its objectives or make Syrian society believe in or care about it, regardless of the efforts of the UN envoy and his team, as long as there is a continuity in committing crimes against humanity by the Syrian regime, the direct party in discussing the constitution!”
 
The report reveals that at least 87 civilians, including 33 children and 11 women (adult female), were killed, and four massacres committed, all at the hands of Syrian-Russian alliance forces in northwest Syria between January 12, 2020, and January 27, 2020. Syrian Regime forces killed 37 civilians, including eight children, three women, and committed one massacre, while Russian forces killed 50 civilians, including 25 children, eight women, and committed three massacres.
The report documents an air attack by fixed-wing Syrian regime (MiG-23) warplanes on Wednesday, January 15, 2020. As the report states, the attack resulted in the deaths of 22 civilians, including two children, and injured around 68 others; among the fatalities was a member of the Syrian Civil Defense. The report notes that this massacre, which is considered the largest in terms of the death toll for a single incident, came just three days after the supposed declaration of a ceasefire.
 
The report notes that the Idlib massacre is simply one in a long series of massacres committed by Syrian-Russian alliance forces, which are encouraged by the failure of the Security Council to protect civilians, and the international community’s failure to form a civilizational alliance to take over the task of protecting civilians in light of the Security Council’s failure. Given this apparent impunity for every type of violation, Syrian-Russian alliance forces have committed almost limitless violations of every variety. Meanwhile, the report emphasizes that Russia is the sponsor of the ceasefire agreements, despite Russia and its ally, the Syrian regime, being by far the most prolific violators of those agreements.
 
The report records that Syrian-Russian alliance forces committed 66 massacres in northwest Syria between April 26, 2019, and January 27, 2020. Syrian Regime forces committed 45 massacres, while Russian forces committed 21 massacres, noting that four of which occurred after the last ceasefire agreement entered into force on January 12 until January 27, 2020.
The report further reveals that these massacres resulted in the deaths of 542 civilians, including 187 children and 107 women (adult female). This means that 55 percent of all the victims were women and children, which is a very high proportion of the casualties, and a clear indication that civilian residents were specifically targeted in most of these massacres.
 
As the report notes, the Syrian regime has committed heinous crimes and violations against Syrian civilians for over eight years to date. It has also consistently failed to respond to any of the demands of the International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, or to those of the High Commission for Human Rights, or even to Security Council resolutions. The Security Council, which was supposed to take collective measures and action under Article 41 and 42 of the Charter of the United Nations, also failed because of the immunity granted to the Syrian regime by Russia, which has routinely used its veto in the case of the Syrian regime, despite the Syrian regime’s failure to abide by its responsibility for the protection of civilians and committing the most egregious violations against them, reaching the level of crimes against humanity, and extermination within detention centers through torture.
Furthermore, the report states, the type of “conscience-shocking situations” which the UN is required to take action to prevent are exactly what have continued to happen in Syria on a staggering scale, not only in the form of one massacre or one violation but in industrial-scale, continuous killings and torture, sexual violence, enforced disappearances, the use of chemical weapons and barrel bombs, and besieging civilians. In this context, the report cites a report issued in December 2001 by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, which stressed that: “The Security Council should take into account in all its deliberations that, if it fails to discharge its responsibility to protect in conscience-shocking situations crying out for action, concerned states may not rule out other means to meet the gravity and urgency of that situation. ”
 
The report stresses that Syrian and Russian forces have violated several rules of international humanitarian law, primarily through their failure to discriminate between civilians and combatants, and between civilian and military targets, bombing hospitals, schools, centers and civilian neighborhoods, with these violations amounting to war crimes.
The report further notes that displacement or forced displacement is another war crime in non-international armed conflicts when committed as part of a deliberate or widespread attack against the civilian population, and may also be considered crimes against humanity.
 
The report further calls on the UN Security Council to pass a resolution to stabilize the ceasefire in Idlib and to include punitive measures for all violators of the cease-fire, to refer the Syrian issue to the International Criminal Court and to ensure that all those involved, including the Russian regime, are held accountable, having been implicated in committing war crimes.
 
The report also presents a set of recommendations to the international community, the UN General Assembly, the OHCHR, and the Independent International Commission of Inquiry (CoI), as well as calling on the donor countries and the OCHA to ensure basic living conditions and to pay attention to the needs of and help provide care for thousands of displaced Syrians who are displaced in the north-western Idlib suburbs, with the most pressing basic needs, primarily water, food, housing, clothing and medical care.
 

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Press release:
In its latest report, released today, the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) states that many of the violations committed by Russian-Syrian alliance since December 15, 2019, in northwest Syria constitute war crimes.
 
The 23-page report explains that the military campaign led by Syrian-Russian alliance forces since April 26, 2019, is being carried out with the aim of controlling the area known as the “fourth de-escalation zone”. The report further notes that in Syria the term “de-escalation zone” has become a total inversion of the truth, with all the areas defined as such being the scenes of massive escalation in military operations, leading to the Syrian regime and Russia controlling these zones one after the other, a strategy they are currently reprising in the fourth and final de-escalation zone. The report adds that since April 2019 to date, Russian and Syria Regime forces have launched several brutal military campaigns, which resulted in the seizure of large areas estimated at almost 20 percent of the total area of the fourth de-escalation zone.
 
The report notes that despite convening sessions of the Constitutional Committee (the meetings of both Committee’s Small and Large Bodies), Russia and the Syrian regime continued with violent bombing attacks even during these sessions in an attempt to impose a fait accompli on the ground, to achieve the ultimate goal of military subjugation, to end any hope of political solution and maintain the rule of the Assad family’s regime by force.
 
The report also notes that during the few days directly before and after the fourteenth round of Astana Talks on Syria, the region witnessed an almost complete cessation of raids by the Russian and Syrian Air Forces, which lasted from December 8 to December 15. On December 15, however, the report documents the start of a new military campaign aimed at controlling Ma’aret al Numan city and its environs, in which, as the report states, Russian forces applied the same tactic they pursued in taking control of Khan Sheikhoun, which is ferocious carpet-bombing similar to the Grozny model by destroying as many civilians’ homes as possible, terrorizing the people and forcing them to surrender and leave.
 
Fadel Abdul Ghany, Chairman of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, says:
“These days coincide with the third anniversary of the displacement of tens of thousands of civilians from the eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo by Russian-Syrian alliance forces, and the alliance itself displaces the people of Ma’aret al Numan and its environs. Why would everyone who can escape do so, leaving behind his home, his belongings, his shop, except if he knows that all he can expect from these forces is humiliation, forced conscription, torture or death? Moreover, 95 percent of the total number of IDPs have not returned to their areas; Daraya, the Ghouta [round Damascus], and other areas controlled by these forces are still almost empty. It is impossible to imagine a safe and voluntary return of IDPs and refugees as long as the current regime remains in place and without a political change towards democracy and accountability taking place.”
 
The report outlines the record of the most notable human rights violations that have taken place as a result of the military escalation by Syrian-Russian alliance forces in northwest Syria in the 11 days between December 15 and December 26, 2019. It also highlights the recent wave of displacement from Ma’aret al Numan city and the targeting of the IDPs during their displacement by Syrian-Russian alliance forces, as well as providing the details of a massacre that occurred as a result of an aerial attack by Russian forces on an apparently randomly selected IDPs’ camp in Joubas village in the eastern suburbs of Idlib, after OCHA circulated a report of a humanitarian truce in the area.
 
In the context of Russian support to the Syrian regime, the report notes that Russia and China used their veto power on December 20, 2019, against the renewal of Security Council Resolution 2449, which requires that the United Nations be re-authorized to bring aid into Syria using border crossings not controlled by Syrian Regime forces, which will expire on January 10, 2020 ; according to the report, this will adversely affect the provision of desperately needed relief to tens of thousands of civilians who were displaced by the Russian and Syrian regimes’ bombardment. This also will leave the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs open to further extortion and theft by the Syrian regime, which is not willing or trustworthy with regard to distributing aid according to those who deserve it and to the most affected areas.
 
The report documents the deaths of 86 civilians, including 21 children, 18 women (adult female), and 42 massacres, in northwest Syria, in which Syrian Regime forces killed 42 civilians, including 10 children and 11 women, and committed four massacres, while Russian forces killed another 44 civilians, including 11 children and seven women, and committed two massacres.
 
The report reveals that at least 47 attacks were carried out on vital civilian facilities in areas of northwest Syria at the hands of Syrian-Russian alliance forces during the period covered by the report, of which nine were on schools, two on medical facilities, 13 on places of worship, and six on markets, distributed to 38 incidents of attack at the hands of Syrian Regime forces, and nine at the hands of Russian forces.
 
The report adds that the Syrian Regime air force, using both fixed-wing warplanes and helicopters, dropped at least 248 barrel bombs between December 15 and December 26, 2019.
 
The report notes that Russian-Syrian alliance forces have obstructed the movement of IDPs, with the aim of further terrorizing them and subjecting them to more difficulties and additional humiliation. In most cases, these attacks occurred through warplanes strafing the main roads crowded with vehicles carrying tens of thousands of IDPs with machine guns. The report further notes that Russian-Syrian alliance forces targeted the main roads used by IDPs at least nine times in the 11-day period covered by the report, in addition to documenting at least three incidents in which Syrian-Russian alliance forces attacked random groups of tents sheltering IDPs.
 
The report stresses that Syrian and Russian forces have violated several rules of international humanitarian law, primarily through their failure to discriminate between civilians and combatants, and between civilian and military targets, bombing hospitals, schools, centers and civilian neighborhoods, with these violations amounting to war crimes.
The report also emphasizes that launching a deliberate attack on medical personnel in the context of a non-international armed conflict is a war crime punishable under international humanitarian law and international criminal law (Articles 8 (2) (b), 24, 8 (2) (e) (2) of the Statute of the International Criminal Court), with Russian and Syrian forces deliberately targeting medical personnel in a number of attacks.
 
The report further states that displacement or forced displacement is another war crime in non-international armed conflicts when committed as part of a deliberate or widespread attack against the civilian population (Articles 8 (2) (b) (7) and 8 (2) (e) (8) of the Statute of the International Criminal Court) and may also be considered crimes against humanity (Articles 7 (1) (d) of the Statute of the International Criminal Court).
 
The report notes that the report issued by the delegates to the 2005 Summit states unanimously that each country had a responsibility to protect its population from crimes against humanity and war crimes. This responsibility entails the prevention of such crimes, the prevention of incitement to commit them by all possible means, and when the state clearly fails to protect its population from egregious crimes, or itself is committing such crimes as in the case of the Syrian regime, means that it is the responsibility of the international community to intervene to take protective measures in a collective, decisive and timely manner.
 
The report calls on the UN Envoy to Syria to condemn the perpetrators of all these crimes and massacres and the main culprits in the collapse of agreements on de-escalation zones by name, and to re-sequence the peace process so that it can resume its natural course after Russia’s attempts to divert and distort it, empowering the Constitutional Committee prior to the establishment of a transitional governing body.
 
The report further calls on the UN Security Council to pass a resolution to stabilize the ceasefire in Idlib and to include punitive measures for all violators of the cease-fire, to refer the Syrian issue to the International Criminal Court and to ensure that all those involved, including the Russian regime, are held accountable, having been implicated in committing war crimes.
 
The report also presents a set of recommendations to the international community, the UN General Assembly, the OHCHR, and the Independent International Commission of Inquiry (CoI), as well as calling on the donor countries and the OCHA to ensure basic living conditions and to pay attention to the needs of and help provide care for thousands of displaced Syrians who are displaced in the north-western Idlib suburbs, with the most pressing basic needs, primarily water, food, housing, clothing and medical care.
 

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BY: Pool via REUTERS

Press release:
The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) has issued a report documenting the most notable violations committed by the parties participating in the Constitutional Committee during the second round of the Committee’s Small Body’s meetings, indicating that 32 civilians were killed at the hand of Syrian-Russian alliance forces during the two rounds of discussions of the Committee’s Small Body.
 
The 15-page report notes that the Sochi Conference of Russia, held on January 30, 2018, constitutes the reference for the formation of the Constitutional Committee, arguing that this is the main way to end the conflict, even though the Syrian political opposition refused to participate in that conference. The idea of the Constitutional Committee was later adopted by former international envoy Staffan de Mistura, with the current UN envoy to Syria, Mr. Geir O. Pedersen, following the same path.
 
The report outlines the context in which the Constitutional Committee Large Body and subsequently the Constitutional Committee Small Body were formed, and refers to the context in which the first and second rounds of the Constitutional Committee Small Body took place.
 
Fadel Abdul Ghany, Chairman of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, says:
“These reports, which reflect only violations and crimes committed during the period of the negotiations’ rounds, aim to emphasize that while a draft national contract is being discussed, Russian and Syrian Regime forces continue to bomb hospitals and vital facilities, and carry out arrests, enforced disappearances, and torture; they continue with their ultimate goal of gaining more time to rehabilitate the Syrian regime according to the logic of military victory, and any of the negotiation process’s outputs will not be respected then. The international community and the United Nations should press the negotiating parties to stop the violations in case they are serious in the political process.”
 
The report aims to outline the most notable violations that the SNHR team was able to document committed by the parties involved in the Constitutional Committee (Syrian Regime forces, the regime’s Russian ally, and factions of the Armed Opposition) during the two rounds of discussions of the Committee’s Small Body, the first held from November 4 to November 9, 2019 and the second held from November 25 to November 30, 2019; due to these criteria, this report does not include any data on violations by Syrian Democratic Forces, the US-led Coalition forces, or the Operation Peace Spring forces (Turkish forces and the Syrian National Army) during this period. The report outlines the most notable incidents of violations committed by the participating parties in conjunction with the meetings of the second session of the Committee’s Small Body in particular.
 
The report explains that most of Syrian society expected that the frequency and severity of violations committed against it would decrease after the constitutional process began. The constitutional process usually takes place after the cessation of conflict and the start of negotiations, until the parties involved reach a mutually agreeable settlement after which they draft a constitutional declaration document based on this. In Syria’s case, however, the conflict is still ongoing, and the Syrian regime and its allies continue to perpetrate various types of violations, with some of these constituting crimes against humanity and others constituting war crimes; these ongoing atrocities include torture inside detention centers and regular bombardment of vital facilities, most notably medical centers. In addition, the fate of the forcibly disappeared hasn’t been revealed by the negotiating parties.
 
The report notes that although the Constitutional Committee is a Russian idea, while the Geneva sessions have been taking place, Russian forces have been conducting fierce and concentrated bombardment on several towns in the southern and western suburbs of Idlib. Also, the last third of November saw an increase in the pace of displacement, with the inhabitants of some villages and towns that had not previously been fully displaced starting to flee northwards as a result of Russian forces escalation of their air attacks on areas in the southern and western suburbs of Idlib, estimating that 30,000 civilians have been displaced, as the report states.
 
The report outlines the most notable violations committed by Syrian Regime forces and their Russian ally in conjunction with the first round of meetings of the Constitutional Committee Small Body, from November 4 to November 9, during which Syrian-Russian alliance forces killed 22 civilians, including 10 children and two women (adult female), of whom nine civilians, including five children, were killed by Syrian Regime forces, and 13 civilians, including five children and two women, killed by Russian forces. The report also documents nine cases of arrests by Syrian Regime forces during the same period, in addition to at least 35 incidents of attacks on vital civilian facilities, including four on schools, seven on medical facilities, seven on places of worship, and seven on Civil Defense Centers (facilities and vehicles), according to the report, Syrian Regime forces were responsible for 30 attacks, while Russian forces carried out five attacks. The report adds that the Syrian regime’s air force dropped at least 35 barrel bombs during the same period, all dropped on Latakia governorate.
 
The report also outlines the most notable violations committed by Syrian Regime forces and their Russian ally in conjunction with the second round of meetings of the Constitutional Committee Small Body, from November 25 to November 30, during which Syrian-Russian alliance forces killed 10 civilians, including four children, of whom seven civilians, including three children, were killed by Syrian Regime forces, while three civilians, including one child, killed by Russian forces. The report also documents 13 cases of arrests by Syrian Regime forces during the same period, in addition to at least six incidents of attacks on vital civilian facilities, four of which were by Syrian Regime forces, while Russian forces carried out two attacks. The report adds that the Syrian regime’s air force dropped at least 82 barrel bombs during the same period, most of which dropped on Idlib governorate.
 
The report notes that no incidents of bombardment causing material or human casualties were recorded by factions of the Armed Opposition on areas controlled by the Syrian regime during the period covered in this report.
 
The report stresses that the Syrian-Iranian-Russian alliance forces have undoubtedly violated UN Security Council Resolutions 2139 and 2254 which ordered a cessation of indiscriminate attacks, as well as violating a wide range of customary international humanitarian law rules, and also violating articles 7 and 8 of the Rome Statute by committing intentional homicide, all of which crimes constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The report also notes that the incidents of bombardment have incidentally caused civilian casualties, including injuries, as well as causing significant damage to civilian objects. There are very strong indications suggesting that this damage was extremely excessive in comparison to the intended military benefit, with the attacks failing to discriminate between civilians and combatants in most cases. Also, it seems that some of the attacks appear to have deliberately targeted vital facilities and civilian areas.
 
The report further notes that the report issued by the delegates to the 2005 Summit states unanimously that each country has a responsibility to protect its population from crimes against humanity and war crimes. This responsibility entails the prevention of such crimes, the prevention of incitement to commit them by all possible means, and when the state clearly fails to protect its population from egregious crimes, or itself is committing such crimes as in the case of the Syrian regime, it is the responsibility of the international community to intervene to take protective measures in a collective, decisive and timely manner.
 
The report calls on the UN special envoy to Syria to condemn the perpetrators of crimes and massacres, and those who are primarily responsible for obstructing the political process, and to re-sequence the peace process so that it can resume its natural course after Russia’s attempts to divert and distort it, empowering the Constitutional Committee prior to the establishment of a transitional governing body, and stresses the importance of requesting that the Syrian regime, its Russian ally, and opposition factions to stop all violations and secure good faith measures by stopping the bombing and at least to disclose the fate of the forcibly disappeared persons.
 
The report calls on the Security Council to take additional steps following its adoption of Resolution 2254, and stresses the importance of referring the Syrian case to the International Criminal Court, adding that all those who are responsible should be held accountable including the Russian regime whose involvement in war crimes has been repeatedly proven.
The report stresses the need to ensure peace and security and to implement the principle of Responsibility to Protect civilians’ lives and to save the Syrian people’s heritage and historical artefacts from destruction, looting and vandalism, calling on all relevant United Nations agencies to make greater efforts to provide food, medical and humanitarian assistance in areas where fighting has ceased, and in internally displaced persons camps, and to follow up with those States that have pledged voluntary contributions.
 
In light of the split within the Security Council and its utter inability to take any effective action, the report stresses the need to taking action on the national and regional levels to form alliances to support the Syrian people by protecting them from daily killing and by lifting sieges, as well as by increasing support for relief efforts. Additionally, the principle of universal jurisdiction should be enacted in local courts regarding these crimes in order to conduct fair trials for all those who were involved.
The report calls for the implementation of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’, stressing the need to resort to Chapter VII, and implement the norm of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’, which was established by the United Nations General Assembly. The Security Council is still hindering the protection of civilians in Syria.
 
The report recommends that the OHCHR should submit a report to the Human Rights Council and other organs of the United Nations on the incidents mentioned in this report since these attacks were perpetrated by the parties to the conflict, should train Syrian organizations to undertake clearance of mines and other unexploded ordnance, and raise local awareness of the dangers of such ordnance, and should establish a platform that brings together a number of Syrian organizations active in documenting violations and humanitarian assistance, in order to facilitate an exchange of skills and experiences within Syrian society.
 
The report calls on the Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI) to launch investigations into the cases included in this report and previous reports, and to clearly identify those responsible for the attacks in the event that results reached are likely, especially Russian forces; the reports of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic are virtually devoid of accidents that are responsible for air strikes, with the exception of only one in three years of Russian intervention in Syria.
 
The report also stresses that the Syrian regime must stop violating the Syrian constitution by killing Syrian citizens, destroying their homes and disappearing and torturing tens of thousands of them, stop the indiscriminate shelling and targeting residential areas, hospitals, schools and markets, as well as ending the acts of torture that have caused the deaths of thousands of Syrian citizens in detention centers, and complying with UN Security Council resolutions and customary humanitarian law and the Syrian constitution and law.
 
The report recommends that the Russian regime should launch investigations into the incidents included in this report, make the findings of these investigations public for the Syrian people, and hold the people involved accountable, as well as demanding that the Russian regime should compensate all the damaged centers and facilities, to rebuild and rehabilitate them, to compensate all the families of victims who were killed by the current Russian regime, as well as all the wounded, and to completely cease the bombing of hospitals, protected objects, and civilian areas, and respect customary international law.
 

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Press release:
In its latest report, released today, the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) confirms that the military escalation in northwest Syria is still ongoing despite the convening of the Constitutional Committee meetings, noting that 56 civilians, including 19 children, were killed at the hands of Syrian-Russian alliance forces in 16 days.
 
The report outlines the historical context of the military escalation in the northwestern region of Syria from April 26 to November 15, 2019, and the events that took place such as the ceasefire agreements announced on August 1, 2019 and on August 31, 2019, in addition to the Syrian regime reusing barrel bombs on civilian areas and the resumption of the Russian Air Force its air strikes on the region.
As the report recalls, the head of the Syrian regime and the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Armed Forces visited al Habeit town in the southern suburbs of Idlib on October 22 and met with members of Syrian Regime forces, as well as directly supervising bombardment carried out by artillery forces stationed in Tal’as town in the southern suburbs of Idlib, a clear indication that he is still has primary responsibility for all violations committed by the Syrian armed forces and for violating the ceasefire declared.
 
Fadel Abdul Ghany, Chairman of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, says:
“The Russian-Syrian alliance did not care about the Constitutional Committee starting its work, and continued to kill civilians and bomb vital facilities and populated areas and to displace the population, thus committing violations, some of which amounting to war crimes. This completely contradicts the committee’s name and course, because any genuine discussion of or preparations for creating a constitution can come only in the final stages of the conflict and after serious negotiations that are framed in a new constitutional declaration; by contrast, the continuing bombing by the Syrian regime and its Russian ally, the inventor of the idea of the Constitutional Committee in cooperation with former UN envoy Staffan de Mistura, confirms the Russian-Syrian alliance’s lack of seriousness and the absolute absurdity of the current course of events, with the international community unable since the beginning to pressure the Syrian regime and its Russian ally to even stop bombing medical centers at least.”
 
The report sheds light on events in northwest Syria (consisting of Idlib governorate and parts of Hama, Aleppo and Latakia governorates), outlining the record of the most notable human rights violations as a result of the military escalation by the Syrian-Russian alliance forces on the area between April 26, 2019, and November 15, 2019. The report also outlines the record of the most notable violations committed following the recent escalation on October 30, following the ceasefire declared by Russian forces on August 30.
 
The report stresses that since the military intervention of Russian forces in Syria in September 2015, the Russian Air Force has carried out tens of thousands of aerial sorties, and that Russian forces have committed hundreds of violations of international humanitarian law, most of which can be categorized as war crimes, with the Russian regime unashamedly stating that it’s been using Syrian territory as a centre for weapons tests. The report notes that most of these weapons have been used against civilian targets, including hospitals, schools, markets and residential buildings, amid unprecedented international silence. The report also notes that despite all these violations, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation has denied carrying out certain attacks, further noting that of the eight largest massacres denied by Russian forces despite overwhelming evidence of their responsibility, the SNHR team has been able to prove its involvement in seven of them, some of which the report outlines. The report confirms the presence of Russian ground forces, despite repeated denial by the Russian Defense Ministry.
 
The report reveals that the residents of northwest Syria are not only suffering from aerial and artillery bombardment by the Russian-Syrian alliance, but those under the control of the extremist organization Hay’at Tahrir al Sham are also subjected to various types of additional repression and violations, with the Salvation Government of HTS beginning, almost a year ago, to tighten its grip on civilian facilities in areas under the group’s control and issuing successive orders tightening the noose on civilians there.
 
The report documents the deaths of 1,124 civilians, including 301 children, 186 women (adult female), and 42 massacres, in northwest Syria at the hands of Syrian-Russian alliance forces between April 26, 2019, and November 15, 2019, of whom the Syrian regime killed 853 civilians, including 234 children and 143 women, and committed 31 massacres, while Russian forces killed another 271 civilians, including 67 children and 43 women, and committed 11 massacres. The report also notes that Syrian-Russian alliance forces killed at least 15 medical personnel, 10 Civil Defense personnel, and two media workers, and carried out at least 500 attacks on vital civilian facilities.
 
The report notes that at least 28 cluster munitions attacks were documented at the hands of Syrian-Russian alliance forces in northwest Syria, in addition to 24 incendiary weapons attacks were carried out on civilian areas far from the frontlines. The report adds that one chemical attack was carried out by Syrian Regime forces in Latakia governorate on May 19, 2019, during the same period.
 
The report also notes that between April 26 and November 15, the Syrian regime carried out several attacks using nail-filled missiles fired by heavy machine guns mounted on fixed-wing L-39 warplanes, with the report able to document at least seven such attacks. According to the report, the Syrian Regime air force, using both fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters, dropped at least 3,631 barrel bombs on northwest Syria during the same period.
 
The report outlines the record of the most notable violations between October 30, the date of the recent military escalation’s start, and November 15, 2019. The report documents that Syrian-Russian alliance forces killed at least 56 civilians, including 19 children, six women, and committed one massacre, 20 of whom were killed at the hands of Syrian Regime forces, including six children and two women, while Russian forces killed 36 civilians, including 13 children, four women, and committed one massacre. The report also documents the death of one medical worker, one Civil Defense worker and one media activist, all at the hands of Syrian Regime forces, during the same period
 
The report reveals that at least 46 attacks were carried out on vital civilian facilities in northwest Syria at the hands of Syrian-Russian alliance forces from October 30, to November 15, 2019, adding that the Syrian Regime air force, using both fixed-wing warplanes and helicopters, dropped at least 54 barrel bombs during the same period.
 
The report stresses that Syrian and Russian forces have violated several rules of international humanitarian law, primarily through their failure to discriminate between civilians and combatants, between civilian and military targets, bombing hospitals, schools, centers and civilian neighborhoods, with these violations amounting to war crimes.
The report also emphasizes that launching a deliberate attack on medical personnel in the context of a non-international armed conflict is a war crime punishable by international humanitarian law and international criminal law (Articles 8 (2) (b), 24, 8 (2) (e) (2) of the Statute of the International Criminal Court), with Russian and Syrian forces deliberately targeting medical personnel in a number of attacks.
 
The report further notes that displacement or forced displacement is another war crime in non-international armed conflicts when committed as part of a deliberate or widespread attack against the civilian population (Articles 8 (2) (b) (7) and 8 (2) (e) (8) of the Statute of the International Criminal Court) and may also be considered crimes against humanity (Articles 7 (1) (d) of the Statute of the International Criminal Court).
 
The report notes that Syrian-Russian alliance forces have violated the de-escalation zone agreement in all regions, including the Idlib region, and violated the Sochi Agreement that came into force in September 2018.
 
Syrian Regime forces have also explicitly violated the Sochi Agreement by carrying out artillery bombardment of a number of villages and towns in northwest Syria, mostly in the demilitarized zone, in the eastern suburbs of Hama and in the south-eastern suburbs of Idlib. These attacks have resulted in civilian casualties.
In addition, Syrian Regime forces and Shiite militias violated the Sochi agreement by attacking factions of the Armed Opposition and killing a number of their members.
 
The report stresses that Syrian Regime forces have practiced the crime of displacement in a systematic, widespread and organized manner against civilian residents, which constitutes a flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions and amounts to a crime against humanity under Article VII of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. We have not recorded any measures by these forces to provide shelter, health care or food to the displaced civilians.
 
The report calls on the UN Envoy to Syria to condemn the perpetrators of the crimes and massacres and the main culprits in the collapse of agreements on de-escalation zones, and to re-sequence the peace process so that it can resume its natural course after Russia’s attempts to divert and distort it, empowering the Constitutional Committee prior to the establishment of a transitional governing body.
 
The report calls on the UN Security Council to pass a resolution to stabilize the ceasefire in Idlib and to include punitive measures for all violators of the cease-fire, to ensure the establishment of peace and security and the implementation of the principle of the Responsibility to Protect civilians and save Syrians’ lives, heritage and cultural artefacts from destruction, pillage and vandalism, to pass a resolution concerning some seven million internally displaced persons in Syria that addresses forced displacement, to ensure that this does not become a long-term crisis, to put pressure on the Syrian regime to end displacements, and to enact laws aimed at preventing the plunder of displaced persons’ properties and possessions.
 
In light of the split within the Security Council and its utter inability, the report urges the International Community to take action at both national and regional levels to form alliances to support the Syrian people in a way that can protect them from the daily killings, to lift the sieges and to increase support for relief efforts. Additionally, it urges that the principle of universal jurisdiction should be applied in local courts regarding these crimes in order to conduct fair trials for all those who were involved.
 
The report calls for the implementation of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ doctrine, which was established by the United Nations General Assembly, and to invoke Chapter VII. The Security Council is still hindering the protection of civilians in Syria
The report further recommends that the OHCHR should submit a report to the Human Rights Council and other organs of the United Nations concerning the violations committed by the Syrian-Russian alliance forces.
 
The report calls on the Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI) to launch investigations into the cases included in this report and previous reports, to clearly identify those responsible for the attacks in the event that results reached are likely, especially Russian forces; the reports of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic are virtually devoid of any attribution of responsibility for air strikes, with the exception of only one case in three years of Russian intervention in Syria.
 
The report calls on the Syrian regime to stop violating the Syrian constitution by killing Syrian citizens, destroying their homes and disappearing and torturing tens of thousands of them, to stop indiscriminate shelling and targeting of residential areas, hospitals, schools and markets, to end the use of internationally outlawed weapons and barrel bombs, to end the acts of torture that have caused the deaths of thousands of Syrian citizens in detention centers, and to ensure compliance with UN Security Council resolutions, customary humanitarian law and the Syrian constitution and law.
 
Finally, the report calls on the Russian regime to launch investigations into the incidents included in this report, to make the findings of these investigations public for the Syrian people, to hold the those responsible accountable, to compensate all the damaged centers and facilities, rebuild and rehabilitate them, to compensate all the families of victims who were killed by the current Russian regime, as well as all the wounded, to completely cease the bombing of hospitals, protected objects, and civilian areas, and to respect customary international law.
 

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Press release:
The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) has issued a report documenting the most notable violations committed by the parties participating in the Constitutional Committee within the first week of its sessions, indicating that the continuing perpetration of war crimes by the Syrian regime and its allies is further evidence of insulting the constitution and the international community.
 
The 15-page report notes that the Sochi Conference of Russia, held on January 30, 2018, constitutes the reference for the formation of the Constitutional Committee, arguing that this is the main way to end the conflict, even though the Syrian political opposition refused to participate in that conference. The idea of the Constitutional Committee was later adopted by former international envoy Staffan de Mistura, with the current UN envoy to Syria, Mr. Geir Pedersen, following the same path.
 
The report outlines the context in which the Constitutional Committee Large Body was formed, which began on October 30, 2019, consisting of 150 members (50 of them from the Syrian government, 50 members representing the opposition and 50 representatives of civil society organizations selected by the UN envoy’s office according to undeclared policies and determining factors which are set by the UN envoy and are frankly incomprehensible, with this group containing figures with no knowledge of constitutional law, human rights, transitional justice, etc.) The report adds that Mr. Pedersen announced an agreement on the formation of the Syrian Constitutional Committee Small Body on November 1, 2019, to begin its work on November 4, with Mr. Pedersen stating that this process would take no longer than a week.
 
This report aims to outline the most notable violations that the SNHR team was able to document committed by the parties involved in the Constitutional Committee (Syrian Regime forces, the regime’s Russian ally, and factions of the Armed Opposition) during the week since the start of the Committee’s sessions on October 30, up until November 6, 2019; due to these criteria, this report does not include any data on violations by Syrian Democratic Forces, the US-led International Coalition forces, or the Operation Peace Spring forces (Turkish forces and the Syrian National Army) during this period.
 
The report explains that most of Syrian society expected that the frequency and severity of violations committed against it would decrease after the constitutional process began. The constitutional process usually takes place after the cessation of conflict and the start of negotiations, until the parties involved reach a mutually agreeable settlement after which they draft a constitutional declaration document based on this. In Syria’s case, however, the conflict is still ongoing, and the Syrian regime and its allies continue to perpetrate various types of violations, with some of these constituting crimes against humanity and others constituting war crimes; these ongoing atrocities include torture inside detention centers and regular bombardment of vital facilities, most notably medical centers. In addition, the fate of the forcibly disappeared hasn’t been revealed by the negotiating parties.
 
In the first week since the sessions of the Constitutional Committee began, the report documents violent and indiscriminate bombardment in many locations, carried out by Syrian Regime forces in the southern suburbs of Idlib and the western suburbs of Hama, with an increase in the frequency of bombardment in and around the cities of Kafranbel and Jisr al Shoghour in Idlib suburbs. Anadan city in the north of Aleppo governorate has also seen a significant increase in the frequency of ground attacks in the last three days. The number of ground attacks the report documented during this week-long period was approximately 162 attacks.
In addition, on November 4, the report recorded the first fixed-wing raid by Syrian Regime forces in nearly six weeks. According to the report, at least 11 raids were carried out on the fourth de-escalation zone, mostly in the western suburbs of Idlib governorate since that date.
 
The report notes that although the Constitutional Committee is a Russian idea, while the Geneva sessions have been taking place, Russian forces have been conducting fierce and concentrated bombardment on several towns in the southern and western suburbs of Idlib, totaling approximately 46 raids.
 
As the report further states, Syrian Regime forces have continued their policy of arrests during this week, which have been concentrated mainly in Damascus Suburbs governorate, primarily targeting people who had previously settled their security situation.
Also, the report notes, the displacement movement in the Idlib area during this period has been very small and limited to the southern suburbs of Idlib and the towns of the western suburbs of Idlib, with almost all the areas that were bombed already having been emptied of their residents.
 
The report outlines the most notable violations committed by Syrian Regime forces and their Russian ally since the start of the sessions of the Constitutional Committee on October 30 up to November 6, 2019.
 
According to the report, Syrian-Russian alliance forces killed 24 civilians, including six children and one woman (adult female) during this period, of whom 10 civilians, including two children, were killed by Syrian Regime forces, while 14 civilians, including four children and one woman, were killed by Russian forces.
 
The report also records 19 cases of arrests by Syrian regime forces in the period covered by the report, in addition to at least 15 incidents of attacks on vital civilian facilities by the Syrian-Russian alliance forces, including two on schools, two on medical facilities, one on a place of worship, and six on Civil Defense Centers (facilities and vehicles), Syrian regime forces were responsible for 12 attacks while Russian forces carried out three attacks.
 
The report notes that no incidents of bombardment causing material or human casualties were recorded by factions of the Armed Opposition on areas controlled by the Syrian regime during the period covered in this report.
 
The report stresses that the Syrian-Iranian-Russian alliance forces have undoubtedly violated UN Security Council Resolutions 2139 and 2254 which ordered a cessation of indiscriminate attacks, as well as violating a wide range of customary international humanitarian law rules, and also violating articles 7 and 8 of the Rome Statute by committing intentional homicide, all of which crimes constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The report also notes that the incidents of bombardment have incidentally caused civilian casualties, including injuries, as well as causing significant damage to civilian objects. There are very strong indications suggesting that this damage was extremely excessive in comparison to the intended military benefit, with the attacks failing to discriminate between civilians and military personnel in most cases. Also, it seems that some of the attacks appear to have deliberately targeted vital facilities and civilian areas.
The report further notes that the report issued by the delegates to the 2005 Summit states unanimously that each country has a responsibility to protect its population from crimes against humanity and war crimes. This responsibility entails the prevention of such crimes, the prevention of incitement to commit them by all possible means, and when the state clearly fails to protect its population from egregious crimes, or itself is committing such crimes as in the case of the Syrian regime, it is the responsibility of the international community to intervene to take protective measures in a collective, decisive and timely manner.
 
The report calls on the UN special envoy to Syria to condemn the perpetrators of crimes and massacres, and those who are primarily responsible for obstructing the political process, and to re-sequence the peace process so that it can resume its natural course after Russia’s attempts to divert and distort it, empowering the Constitutional Committee prior to the establishment of a transitional governing body, and stresses the importance of requesting that the Syrian regime, its Russian ally, and opposition factions to stop all violations and secure good faith measures by stopping the bombing and at least to disclose the fate of the forcibly disappeared persons.
 
The report calls on the Security Council to take additional steps following its adoption of Resolution 2254, and stresses the importance of referring the Syrian case to the International Criminal Court, adding that all those who are responsible should be held accountable including the Russian regime whose involvement in war crimes has been repeatedly proven.
The report stresses the need to ensure peace and security and to implement the principle of responsibility to protect civilians’ lives and to save the Syrian people’s heritage and historical artefacts from destruction, looting and vandalism, calling on all relevant United Nations agencies to make greater efforts to provide food, medical and humanitarian assistance in areas where fighting has ceased, and in internally displaced persons camps, and to follow up with those States that have pledged voluntary contributions.
 
In light of the split within the Security Council and its utter inability to take any effective action, the report stresses the need to taking action on the national and regional levels to form alliances to support the Syrian people by protecting them from daily killing and by lifting sieges, as well as by increasing support for relief efforts. Additionally, the principle of universal jurisdiction should be enacted in local courts regarding these crimes in order to conduct fair trials for all those who were involved.
The report calls for the implementation of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’, stressing the need to resort to Chapter VII, and implement the norm of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’, which was established by the United Nations General Assembly. The Security Council is still hindering the protection of civilians in Syria.
 
The report recommends that the OHCHR should submit a report to the Human Rights Council and other organs of the United Nations on the incidents mentioned in this report since these attacks were perpetrated by the parties to the conflict, should train Syrian organizations to undertake clearance of mines and other unexploded ordnance, and raise local awareness of the dangers of such ordnance, and should establish a platform that brings together a number of Syrian organizations active in documenting violations and humanitarian assistance, in order to facilitate an exchange of skills and experiences within Syrian society.
 
The report calls on the Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI) to launch investigations into the cases included in this report and previous reports, and to clearly identify those responsible for the attacks in the event that results reached are likely, especially Russian forces; the reports of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic are virtually devoid of accidents that are responsible for air strikes, with the exception of only one in three years of Russian intervention in Syria.
The report also stresses that the Syrian regime must stop violating the Syrian constitution by killing Syrian citizens, destroying their homes and disappearing and torturing tens of thousands of them, stop the indiscriminate shelling and targeting residential areas, hospitals, schools and markets, as well as ending the acts of torture that have caused the deaths of thousands of Syrian citizens in detention centers, and complying with UN Security Council resolutions and customary humanitarian law and the Syrian constitution and law.
The report recommends that the Russian regime should launch investigations into the incidents included in this report, make the findings of these investigations public for the Syrian people, and hold the people involved accountable, as well as demanding that the Russian regime should compensate all the damaged centers and facilities, to rebuild and rehabilitate them, to compensate all the families of victims who were killed by the current Russian regime, as well as all the wounded, and to completely cease the bombing of hospitals, protected objects, and civilian areas, and respect customary international law.
 

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Press release:
Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) reveals in its latest report that it has obtained satellite images proving the extent of the massive destruction inflicted on Khan Sheikhoun city in the southern suburbs of Idlib, noting that the goal of the Russian-Syrian alliance is to implement the Grozny and Eastern Ghouta model and to destroy as many buildings as possible to punish Syrian society.
 
Based on these images, the report notes that the magnitude and extent of the destruction of Khan Sheikhoun city in the southern suburbs of Idlib are very similar to what was inflicted on the Eastern Ghouta region of Damascus between February and April 2018, and before that on the eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo at the end of 2016, noting that the extensive destruction inflicted through intense aerial carpet-bombing is not a chaotic process, but a deliberate strategy aimed at destroying as many buildings and facilities as possible to punish the inhabitants of those areas and force them to pay the greatest possible price for demanding freedom, with the regime able to do this due to being protected by continuous total impunity for several years now.
 
The 17-page report notes that aerial bombardment is responsible for 70 percent of the total destruction in Syria, with the air forces responsible owned and controlled solely by the Syrian regime and Russia, as well as by the International Coalition forces, although the destruction caused by the aerial bombardment by International Coalition forces is not even close to being comparable to the devastation inflicted by the aerial bombardment by Syrian Regime and Russian air forces.
As the report states, nearly 3.1 million homes have been partially or completely damaged to date, meaning millions of Syrians have lost their homes. For many Syrians, this means not just losing a house, but losing their inheritance and a centuries-old part of their family’s history, with a large proportion of these homes passed down through generations.
 
According to the report, since the beginning of the recent military campaign by Syrian-Russian alliance forces on April 26, 2019, these forces have deliberately bombed and destroyed as many houses as possible, especially targeting vital facilities located in the fourth de-escalation zone (consisting of Idlib governorate and parts of the governorates of Hama, Aleppo and Latakia), particularly in the southern part of the zone which is adjacent to areas under the control of Syrian Regime forces.
 
This report proves that Russian-Syrian alliance forces have destroyed tens of thousands of residential buildings in recent months in the fourth de-escalation zone in northwestern Syria, through indiscriminate, heavy, extensive, and constant bombardment, particularly through using barrel bombs. The report provides satellite images of Khan Sheikhoun city, which serves as a template showing the similar destruction inflicted on other towns and cities such as al Latamena, Kafr Zita, Kafr Nbouda, and others.
 
The report outlines the record of Russian-Syrian alliance forces’ use of the most notable types of weapons in the Idlib area since the beginning of the recent military campaign on April 26, 2019, up until September 15, 2019, with SNHR documenting at least 24 cluster munitions attacks, 12 of which were carried out by the Syrian regime, and three carried out by Russian forces, in addition to at least 21 incendiary weapons attacks, all by the Syrian regime.
 
As the report further reveals, Syrian Regime forces used nail missiles in at least seven attacks, while the Syrian regime’s helicopters and fixed-wing warplanes dropped at least 3,420 barrel bombs, in addition to using chemical weapons in one attack on al Kbaina village in the suburbs of Latakia.
 
On the extent of the targeting of civilian vital facilities, the report documents 450 attacks by Russian-Syrian alliance forces since April 26 up until September 15, 2019, including 109 attacks on places of worship, 125 on schools, 56 on medical facilities, 21 on markets, and 43 on Civil Defense centers. By far the most commonly targeted locations, however, have been houses and other residential buildings, with the report basing its findings on satellite images, photos and videos which SNHR was able to obtain showing that entire villages and towns have been completely razed, including Jebbin village in the suburbs of Hama governorate. Through an approximate inductive process that extrapolated the destruction witnessed in these images to the other neighborhoods for which it has so far been unable to obtain photos and videos, the report estimates that tens of thousands of residential buildings have been either damaged, or almost or completely destroyed.
 
The report details the historical context of events in Khan Sheikhoun city, which was selected as a case study example, and analyzes the extent of the destruction inflicted on the city since it broke free of Syrian regime control in May 2014.
Based on satellite images of Khan Sheikhoun city taken on August 2, 2019, the report identifies about 220 points where buildings were severely destroyed, noting that approximately 35 percent of the area of the city has been completely destroyed, and 40 percent of it partially destroyed. This means that about 75 percent of the city’s buildings are either partially or completely destroyed.
 
The report reveals that the bombardment by Russian-Syrian alliance forces targeting the fourth de-escalation zone since April 26 has resulted in the deaths of 1,012 civilians, including 272 children, and 171 women (adult female), as well as causing the displacement of approximately 630.000 civilians according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, and leading to the accumulation of approximately 500.000 asylum seekers on the Turkish border.
 
The report emphasizes that at the humanitarian response level, the recent displacements are the worst to date, given the very large number of internally displaced persons, and the inability of local and international humanitarian organizations to respond to all of them, with the international response still failing to meet even 10 percent of these basic needs, and being completely inconsistent with the size of the human influx and the magnitude of the disaster that has befallen them.
 
The report stresses that the Syrian-Iranian-Russian alliance forces have unquestionably violated UN Security Council Resolutions No. 2139 and 2254 to stop indiscriminate attacks, as well as violating Articles 7 and 8 of the Rome Statute by committing intentional homicide, all of which constitute crimes against humanity. The report also notes that the Russian-Syrian alliance forces have used indiscriminate and highly destructive indiscriminate weapons and prohibited weapons such as cluster munitions and chemical weapons.
 
The report adds that bombardments have inadvertently caused losses of civilian lives, injuries, and severe damage to civilian objects, and there are strong indications that lead SNHR to believe the damage is disproportionately extreme compared to any military objectives for the attacks, noting that such indiscriminate bombardment has caused a succession of violations, including the crime of enforced displacement, which constitutes a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
 
The report calls on the UN Security Council to issue a binding resolution that prevents and punishes the crime of enforced displacement, compels the cessation of enforced displacement, and explicitly provides for the right of forcibly displaced people to return safely to their homes, and receive reparation for what they have suffered, and to compel the Syrian regime to stop its settlements and replacements it carries out in cities and neighborhoods whose residents have been displaced; that is to say, forced displacement threatens the region and Syrian territory, destabilizing security and stability, and establishing peace and security for Syria is at the core of the Security Council’s tasks, responsibilities and capabilities.
 
The report recommends that the Security Council should refer the Syrian case to the International Criminal Court and all those responsible, including the Russian regime whose involvement in these war crimes has been proven, should be held accountable, and that the Security Council should establish peace and security, implement the principle of the Responsibility to Protect civilians, to save Syrians’ lives, heritage and cultural artefacts from destruction, pillage and vandalism, and should extend sanctions to include the Syrian, Russian and Iranian regimes who are directly implicated in war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Syrian people.
 
The report stresses that the Russian and Iranian regimes should face heavy fines for the destruction of vital buildings and facilities in Syria. These amounts should be reflected in the compensation of the victims and the restoration of the houses and shops which these forces contributed to destroying.
 
The report calls for action to be taken at the national and regional levels to form alliances to support the Syrian people that can protect them from the daily killings, lift the siege and increase support for relief efforts. Additionally, the principle of universal jurisdiction should be applied in local courts regarding these crimes in order to conduct fair trials for all those who were involved, the ‘Responsibility to Protect’ principle should be implemented, and steps should be taken under Chapter VII which was established by the United Nations General Assembly. At present, however, as the report notes, the Security Council is still hindering the protection of civilians in Syria.
The report urges the United Nations to work to fulfil justice and achieve accountability in Syria through the United Nations General Assembly and the Human Rights Council and to implement the principle of the universal jurisdiction.
 
The report further calls on the OHCHR to assist in the building of a central housing and real estate database in Syria, with the aim of achieving reparations, implementing voluntary repatriation programs and ensuring restitution of housing, land and real estate in accordance with the UN Principles on Housing and Property Restitution for Refugees and Displaced Persons – Pinheiro Principles, to prepare a special report on destroying buildings, shops and vital facilities in northwestern Syria, and to report to the Security Council on the seriousness and sensitivity of the issue of property destruction.
 
The report also calls on the Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI) to include a broad paragraph on violations of property destruction by Russian and Syrian forces in the next report in February 2020 and to do whatever is necessary to investigate the extent to which Russia and the Syrian regime intentionally destroy as many homes and other properties as possible.
 
The report urges the UN Envoy to Syria to highlight in the forthcoming UN Security Council briefing the destruction of tens of thousands of residential buildings in northwestern Syria by Russian and Syrian forces and the forced displacement of their people, to clearly condemn the perpetrators of crimes, massacres and the main perpetrators of violations of Security Council resolutions, and to call for a speedy implementation of democratic political change that restores victims’ rights and embodies the principles of transitional justice.
 
The report asserts that the Russian regime must not repeat its bombardments and killings of civilians and targeting of their vital facilities, houses and shops, adding that it must stop supporting the Syrian regime in the Security Council and stop using its veto to block the passage of any UN resolution punishing the Syrian regime, and must reconstruct and restore the residential buildings and shops destroyed by Russian military forces, and compensate victims throughout the duration of their displacement.
 

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