Press release: (Download the full report below)

The Hague – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) today issued a report entitled ‘29 Morally Bankrupt Governments, Headed by Russia, Voted Against the OPCW’s Resolutions’, emphasizing that many states worldwide must bring cases against the Syrian regime before the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the regime’s repeated violations of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).

In the 15-page report, SNHR notes that the Syrian regime has carried out 184 chemical attacks since ratifying the Convention in September 2013. The report outlines the decisions adopted by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), identifying the states that voted against those decisions, or in other words the states that support the continuation of the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons program. Through this action, it notes, these states are, in effect, encouraging the regime to use weapons of mass destruction – chemical weapons – and emboldening it to carry out more chemical weapons attacks against the Syrian people.

As Fadel Abdul Ghany, SNHR’s Executive Director, says:
“The Syrian regime has unequivocally contravened the CWC on 184 separate occasions, as proven by many domestic, international, and UN bodies, including the COI, the UN-OPCW JIM, the OPCW’s IIT, HRW, Amnesty International, and SNHR. This massive body of evidence warrants a renewal of our calls to bring a case against the Syrian regime before the ICC for contravening the CWC.”

The report reveals that the OPCW adopted 10 decisions, through which it aimed to eliminate the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons program, destroy the facilities used by the regime to produce, manufacture, and store chemical weapons, preserve the rights of the victims, and hold those responsible for chemical weapons attacks in Syria accountable. These decisions are divided between eight decisions adopted by the OPCW’s Executive Council and two adopted by the OPCW’s Conference of the State Parties, with the report providing an outline of those 10 decisions.

Moreover, the report identifies the governments that voted against the decisions adopted by the OPCW, stressing that a number of what the report describes as ‘morally bankrupt’ governments which voted once or more in favor of the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons in Syria, have thus emboldened the regime to use these weapons repeatedly, even after its ratification of the CWC. The report also notes that that these votes are a message of disapproval against the expansion of the OPCW’s mandate, against the reports released by the OPCW, which were based on rigorous methodology, and most importantly against the victims who were killed or injured by the Syrian regime’s unconscionable and repeated use of internationally outlawed chemical weapons, that is, weapons of mass destruction, against the Syrian people.

These states, the report further adds, share a number of common characteristics, such as dictatorial and oppressive leadership, opposition to fundamental human rights, and, in some cases, absolute loyalty to Russia and Iran, i.e., the Syrian regime’s two main allies. Still, however, those states constitute a minority which has been consistently defeated many times in votes. There are 29 states that voted against one or more OPCW decisions, including four who voted in support of the regime on decisions proposed both by the Executive Council and the Conference.

The report stresses that the most recent decision adopted by the OPCW, stripping Syria of its privileges as a state party in the CWC, will not be enough to deter the regime and its allies, noting that action must be taken by the UN General Assembly. In case the UN General Assembly is unable or unwilling to act, the report emphasizes, the democratic, liberal states of the world must demonstrate their adherence to international law in every way, shape, and form, and as such establish an alliance to achieve this.

The report calls on the OPCW to promote and support the OPCW’s team on Syria, which is facing ruthless opposition from Russia and many dictatorships around the world. This is particularly vital since the OPCW’s work on the issue of chemical weapons in Syria is arguably the most important task that the OPCW has yet had to address since its establishment. There is still much work to be done concerning Syria compared to the almost non-existent use of chemical weapons elsewhere in the world. The report also calls on the OPCW to modify the voting mechanism in order to allow the presence of civil society organizations, especially those actively working on the issue of chemical weapons.

The report also calls on the OPCW’s state parties to take action at all levels to deter the Syrian regime and end all forms of cooperation with it, as well as take action in light of the Syrian regime’s contravention of the convention before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), similar to the case brought by Canada and The Netherlands over the application of the UN Convention Against Torture, in addition to making other recommendations.

Download the full report

Press Release (Download the full report below)

The Hague – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) today released a report entitled, “The Mechanisms by Which the Syrian Regime Has Used Laws to Expropriate Tens of Thousands of Homes, Properties and Areas of Land in Homs Governorate”, in which the group tries to break down the Syrian regime’s calculated policies to seize homes, properties, and areas of land through an unlawful quasilegal system.

The report is divided into two main sections, with each section being further subdivided into a number of chapters and research questions. The first section of this report, which focuses on ‘How the lives of Homs residents and their properties have been affected by them joining the uprising’, aims to briefly summarize Homs governorate’s involvement in the Syrian uprising and give a sense of its historical trajectory. To that end, it was important to also give a brief summary of the Syrian regime’s barbaric response to the peaceful demands of the Syrian people, as the report outlines the most notable gross violations perpetrated by the Syrian regime in the 12-plus years since the beginning of the uprising in March 2011, as well as the destruction left by the regime in Homs governorate. The second section tackles two case studies – Baba Amr neighborhood in Homs city and al-Qsair city in rural Homs. By taking one area of the city and another of rural Homs, the report tried to expand its scope of focus into both the city and rural areas in Homs governorate. As the report tackles both cases, the most notable violations and destruction taking place in both Baba Amr and al-Qsair are examined, in an attempt to track how that affected the process of forced displacement of the residents of the governorate, which set the stage for the regime to seize real estate properties.

The report adopts an investigative approach, according to which all the accounts, interactive maps, documentative photos, and video footage were exhaustively analyzed in order to arrive at informed conclusions, with a specific focus on the development of the situation on the ground. To that end, the report includes a small survey of the hundreds of Syrian citizens that SNHR interviewed from across Homs governorate and whose real estate properties have been affected and violated by the regime’s practices. As for the interactive maps, which includes satellite imagery, the report incorporates the criteria applied by the United Nations Satellite Center (UNOSAT) of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR).

The report stresses that, in the last five years since 2018, the Syrian regime intensified its efforts to seize citizens’ property and deprive them of their housing, land, and property rights (HLP) on the basis of laws and decrees it has unlawfully promulgated since 2011, taking advantage of the chaotic climate of an internal armed conflict, as well as exploiting its absolute control of the People’s Assembly of Syria. The regime has worked for years on building this quasilegal arsenal over the course of the internal armed conflict. The report adds that, while the laws and decrees put in place by the Syrian regime can potentially be used to target the properties of any Syrian, they are primarily and directly targeting three groups: First: The forcibly displaced (namely internally displaced persons ‘IDPs’ and refugees), currently numbering approximately 12 million Syrian citizens according to the UN Refugees Agency (UNHCR); second: forcibly disappeared persons, currently numbering approximately 112,713 Syrian citizens; and third: Approximately 500,000 Syrians killed since 2011 (both civilians and military combatants), the overwhelming majority of whose deaths have not been documented in the civil registry’s records. As it is widely established, most of those are regime dissidents and have been victims of the regime violations being committed since March 2011.

As the report further notes, there is a clear and firm connection between human rights violations and HLP violations, since gross human rights violations naturally drives people to flee, thereby making their properties subject to expropriation in accordance with the legals texts promulgated by the Syrian regime. In this context, the report outlines the most notable violations that forced people to flee. As such, the report notes that no fewer than 30,571 civilians were killed at the hands of the parties to the conflict and controlling forces in Homs between March 2011 and August 2023. The report also documented no fewer than 20 massacres exhibiting a sectarian character. Most of these massacres were committed in the early years of the uprising. Moreover, the report records that, of the people arrested between March 2011 and September 2023, 7,374 individuals are still detained and/or forcibly disappeared at the hands of the parties to the conflict and controlling forces in Homs governorate. The overwhelming majority of these violations have been perpetrated by the Syrian regime and its allies.

Meanwhile, the report records that no fewer than 3,636 barrel bombs have been dropped by the regime air force on Homs governorate since July 2012 up until August 2023, killing 708 civilians. The report also document seven chemical attacks at least taking place in Homs governorate since the first documented use of chemical weapons on December 23, 2012, up until August 2023. All of the seven attacks were carried out by Syrian regime forces. Additionally, the report records no fewer than 18 cluster munition attacks since the first documented use of cluster munitions in Syria in July 2012, up until August 2023, which resulted in the killing of no fewer than six civilians. Finally, the report documents the killing of 110 civilians in Homs governorate by the explosion of landmines between March 2011 and August 2023.

The report sheds light on two case studies in Homs governorate – Baba Amr neighborhood and al-Qsair city. To that end, the report outlines the most notable violations in both areas, while tracking the seizure of real estate properties owned by the Syrians and giving an idea of the scope of destruction taking place in Baba Amr and al-Qsair. Additionally, the report conducts a comparison between the destruction captured by satellite imagery and the actual destruction on the ground, in order to give further insight into the scope of pillage and seizure targeting lands and real estate properties, and the true size of destruction seen in many cities, villages, and neighborhoods across the governorate of Homs.

The report concludes that the maps indicate that the artillery and aerial attacks against many cities, neighborhood, and rural areas in Homs governorate was too excessive in relation to the anticipated military benefit for the regime or its allies in the ground, which suggests that these attacks had no military purpose, but were carried out for the sake of other goals, such as destroying and seizing the real estate properties of Syrian citizens by driving their owners out and then eliminating any possibility of them ever returning, which paves the way for the regime to take advantage of the properties and lands it seized for the sake of the reconstruction process. This has been the ultimate end goal pursued by the regime regardless of the violation it has committed, the severe material losses it has caused, or the fact that it has impoverished the Syrian people by seizing their properties and lands.

The report calls on the international community and the UN to condemn the Syrian regime’s hegemony over the three branches of government, to expose its practices in passing laws which are simply quasi-legal tools used to pillage the properties of IDPs, refugees, forcibly disappeared persons, and unregistered victims, in the hopes of repealing the future effects of these laws, which is one of the report’s most important objectives.
Furthermore, the report calls on donor states, investors, and humanitarian agencies operating in Syria to cease their direction of funds to the Syrian regime through reconstruction programs, and to introduce new mechanisms, so as to avoid those funds potentially being misused to violate the HLP rights of residents or the displaced, or so that these funds do not go to bodies that violate human rights and international humanitarian law.

The report also calls on the UNHCR to condemn the practices of the Syrian regime that involve widespread and systematic looting and taking control of the properties and the residential and agricultural lands owned by refugees and IDPs, and submit a report to the Security Council and the UN Special Envoy to Syria on this issue, since this is one of the main obstacles impeding the return of refugees and IDPs. The report adds that the UNHCR should reiterate that it is not possible to talk about a potential normalization of relations with the Syrian regime without first resolving the issue of refugees, which cannot be resolved without fully and wholly return real estate rights to their original owners in Syria, in addition to making other recommendations…

Download the full report

Press release: (Download the full report below)

The Hague – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) today released a report entitled, ‘Only Nine Countries Out of 193 Have Voted in Favor of the Syrian Regime on UN General Assembly Resolutions Since March 2011’, in which it notes that some of the Arab states working to restore relations with the Syrian regime have voted against the regime on all UN General Assembly resolutions.
The 14-page report outlines how the UN General Assembly (UNGA) has discussed the human rights situation in Syria, in many of its sessions. To that end, the UNGA has adopted 17 resolutions on Syria since the beginning of the popular uprising, most of which condemned the human rights violations by the Syrian regime, and which describe some of these as crimes against humanity. In other words, all these resolutions have sided with the rights of the Syrian people.
The report categorizes the UNGA resolutions into three groups. First, the repot sheds light on 12 resolutions adopted by the UNGA on the human rights situation in Syria, in which the UNGA condemned the grave and systematic human rights violations committed by the Syrian regime, and described some of these as crimes against humanity such as arbitrary execution and the excessive use of force against civilians, as well as persecution, arrests, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, torture, ill treatment of detainees including children, and attacking vital civilian facilities such as hospitals, schools, places of worship, and others. These resolutions also condemned forced displacement practices in Syria and the demographic outcomes of these, and condemned the violations by all parties to the conflict. In all of its resolutions, the UNGA has called on the Syrian regime to immediately put an end to all human rights violations, secure the protection of the country’s residents, and uphold its obligations under international human rights law. The UNGA resolutions also called on all parties to the conflict to end all violence in Syria and immediately release all arbitrarily arrested detainees.
Second, the report continues, the UNGA adopted four resolutions on the situation in Syria, without referring it to any of its six Main Committees. The UNGA, through those four resolutions, condemned the widespread and systematic violations of human rights and basic freedoms by the Syrian regime, as well as the other parties to the conflict, through the use of force against civilians, arbitrary execution, the killing and persecution of protestors, human rights defenders, and journalists, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, torture, and ill treatment of individuals, including children. In those resolutions, the UNGA also called on the Syrian regime to immediately release all arbitrarily detained individuals, as well as underlining the importance of ensuring accountability and of putting an end to impunity for all individuals responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in Syria, including violations that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, while also stressing that all such individuals must be held accountable.
Third, the report adds, the UNGA adopted resolution 71/248 on December 21, 2016, without any referral to any of the UNGA’s six Main Committees. In accordance with this resolution, the UNGA founded the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism (IIIM) to assist in the investigation and prosecution of persons responsible for the most serious crimes under international law committed in the Syrian Arab Republic since March 2011, following the Security Council’s failure to refer the case in Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC). The resolution establishing the IIIM received the support of 105 states, while 52 states abstained from voting. The remaining 15 states that voted against this resolution are the Syrian regime, Russia, China, Iran, Algeria, Belarus, Cuba, Venezuela, Burundi, Bolivia, North Korea, South Sudan, Zimbabwe, Kyrgyzstan, and Nicaragua.
Fadel Abdul Ghany, Executive Director of SNHR, says:
“The overwhelming majority of the world’s states actually care about their legal and ethical image. That is why, as we’ve noted, many of those states, even non-democratic ones, have voted against the Syrian regime. This is because the regime has descended to the level of committing crimes against humanity, and it has become impossible for them to provide cover for its crimes, especially since it has used chemical weapons and killed tens of thousands of Syrian citizens under torture. Only nine countries out of 193 have consistently voted in favor of the Syrian regime at the UNGA.”
As the report reveals, only nine states have opposed all UNGA resolutions on Syria since March 2011. In other words, these nine states have consistently voted in favor of the Syrian regime for the past 12 years, with all these states ruled by similarly oppressive dictatorships. These states are: Russia, Iran, China, Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Nicaragua. The report adds that eight states have voted in support of the Syrian regime on a number of UNGA resolutions, but abstained from voting on other resolutions, yet they never voted in favor of any of the UNGA resolutions on Syria since March 2011. As such, the report concludes that the overall number of states that voted in favor of the UNGA resolutions on Syria since March 2011 is vastly greater than the number of the dictatorial states that voted in support of the Syrian regime.
The report shows that the overwhelming majority of the world’s states refuse to support crimes against humanity and war crimes in Syria. Had the decision to protect civilians been left to the UNGA or the HRC, it notes, violations in Syria would have been stopped in the summer of 2011; instead, however, the UN Security Council consolidated most of the executive powers in its hands, while miserably and totally failing to protect civilians in Syria for 12 years and counting.
The report calls on the UNGA to issue a resolution to suspend the membership of the Syrian regime from all UN organs and organizations considering the fact the regime has committed crimes against humanity against the Syrian people and used weapons of mass destruction.
The report also calls on all the world’s states to stand in solidarity with just causes, and vote in support of UNGA resolutions condemning those states that grossly violate basic human rights, such as the Syrian regime, and respect the rights of the victims who have been killed and displaced by the Syrian regime, especially women, children, and forcibly disappeared persons, and to end support for the Syrian regime, in addition to making several other recommendations.

Download the full report

Press release: (Download the full report below)

The Hague – The Syrian Network for Human Rights today released a report entitled, ‘The Syrian Regime Has Bombed the Areas Affected by the February 6 Earthquake 132 Times, including 29 Attacks that Targeted Areas Far from the Dividing Lines’, in which it noted that five civilians were killed, 42 others injured, and seven vital facilities damaged in attacks launched by the Syrian regime in the aftermath of the earthquake.

The 8-page report notes that northwestern Syria was one of the regions worst affected by the earthquake on February 6, 2023. This region houses the overwhelming majority of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Syria, estimated at 3.2 million in total, 75 percent of them women and children, who fled there from across Syria, in the hopes of escaping the brutal onslaught by the Syrian regime and its allies, Iran and Russia. It is estimated that the proportion of IDPs who have returned to their original areas to date amounts to less than two percent of the total, even though some of these IDPs live only a few kilometers from their homes, all due to their fear of further violations by the Syrian regime. In fact, this has been the longest internal displacement in modern history, worsened by the violations against IDPs in areas where they sought shelter, and by the declining levels of international support. The report adds that SNHR has documented hundreds of deliberate attacks against civilians and vital infrastructure in the areas to which the IDPs fled seeking safety. Furthermore, the Syrian regime deliberately severed IDPs’ access to all basic services, including water and electricity, even while insisting that the same regime should be the sole recipient and distributor of all UN humanitarian assistance due to its control of the Syrian state, despite its shameful history of murderous violence and its deliberate obstruction of the delivery of aid supplied, as well as its blatant theft of the overwhelming majority of this aid. All of the aforementioned factors, the report stresses, have only led to an increase in the death toll caused by the February 6 earthquake in northwestern Syria, with the final figure for the total number of deaths caused directly as a result of the catastrophic natural disaster in the region of northwestern Syria rising to 4,191 Syrians.
The report adds that the earthquake also resulted in the further displacement of 160,000 Syrians, most of whom had already been displaced on at least one occasion previously and who were already grappling with horrendous living conditions. The multilayered suffering and trauma of Syrians in northwest Syria has been further intensified by the aftershocks still taking place as of this writing. Roughly 80 percent of residents in the region have had to leave their homes and spend nights in the open air in freezing conditions, for fear of further destruction to buildings from any potential aftershocks, which protracted their suffering amid already dire living conditions and psychological trauma.
Moreover, the report notes that ground-based attacks by Syrian regime forces and their allies against the region of northwestern Syria continued throughout the nine weeks following the earthquake, February 6 until April 10, 2023, with some of these carried out against camps housing earthquake victims who were displaced once again as a result. The report documents no fewer than 132 ground-based attacks by Syrian regime forces in this period, including 29 attacks targeting areas far from the dividing lines. The attacks resulted in the deaths of five civilians, including one child, and injured 42 others, in addition to seven attacks on vital civilian facilities, including one school, one medical dispensary, one mosque, and two popular markets, with the report providing details of the most notable attacks.
The report concludes that the Syrian regime has unequivocally violated Security Council resolutions 2139 and 2254, which call for ending indiscriminate attacks, as well as violating the rules of international humanitarian law on the distinction between civilians and combatants. Furthermore, the report adds, the regime has demonstrated an unfathomable and unparalleled level of inhumanity by bombing areas already devastated by the earthquake, even while the entire world, both governments and states, showed sympathy for the victims.
The report calls on the Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC), adding that all those involved must be held accountable, and that the use of veto powers should be blocked in cases of crimes against humanity and war crimes. The report also calls for Imposing UN military and economic sanctions on the Syrian regime, especially on the heads of the regime who are involved in crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Additionally, the report calls on the UN and donor states to establish an international support platform to effectively and professionally coordinate humanitarian assistance in northwestern Syria. Such a body would act as an alternative option in addition to the UN, instead of relying fully and solely on the UN, with this reliance proven to be a failure in light of Russia’s extortion of the UN over the past 12 years.

Download the full report

Press release: (Download the full report below)

The Hague – In a report published today, the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) welcomed the latest report released by the COI and the most recent Human Rights Council (HRC) resolution, which confirmed that violations continue in Syria, noting that only 12 states have voted against the HRC resolutions condemning violations against the Syrian people since March 2011, with the overwhelming majority of world states voting in support of the rights of the Syrian people.
The 10-page report sheds light on the 27th report released by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic (COI), which was published on March 13, 2023. The report, which covers the period between July 1, 2022, and December 31, 2022, documents grave violations of fundamental human rights and humanitarian law across Syria. In this context, SNHR’s report includes a summary of the most notable points of the COI report, welcoming its recommendations and underlining SNHR’s support for the COI’s mandate and the investigations it has carried out since its establishment. The report also underscores SNHR’s cooperation with the COI since 2011.
Moreover, SNHR’s report welcomes the HRC resolution adopted on April 4, 2023, extending the mandate of the COI by one year.
As the report notes, the HRC resolution confirms that continue to be perpetrated in Syria. The report further states that all the findings of this resolution are in the interest of the Syrian people and state, against the perpetrators of violations against them. Despite this, however, the report reveals that five oppressive states voted in favor of the Syrian regime, namely China, Cuba, Bolivia, Eretria, and Algeria, although the majority of the member states voting, 26 states in all, voted in favor of the resolution and the Syrian people.
On a related note, the report includes a brief analysis of the states’ voting behavior on HRC resolutions on the state of human rights in Syria since March 2011. To that end, the report notes that a total of 41 resolutions were adopted by the HRC on Syria since the beginning of the popular uprising, including 14 resolutions regarding the establishment of the Fact-Finding Mission which later developed into the International Commission of Inquiry, as well as extending its mandate. The report stresses that a total of 12 states, united by shared characteristics of despotism, have consistently voted against HRC resolutions and in support of the Syrian regime since March 2011. The report adds that, in addition to this, these states are not only denying the violations committed by the regime, but through these denials are effectively encouraging the regime to commit more violations by promising to secure support for it at the HRC. The report includes a map showing the 12 states that have consistently voted against HRC resolutions condemning violations against the Syrian people between March 2011 and April 2023, namely Russia, China, Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Burundi, Armenia, Eretria, the Philippines, Algeria, Iraq, and Egypt, and provides a record of how many times each of those 12 states has voted. The report describes these states as “mutually supportive totalitarian states that are actively opposed to democracy and respect for international human rights law,” as well as being isolated rogue states.
As the report further confirms, the overwhelming majority of states worldwide have endorsed the HRC resolutions that support the rights of the Syrian people, and condemn the vicious violations against them. The report, in which SNHR expresses its immense gratitude to these states for showing their support for the rights of the Syrian people, also includes a map showing the states that have consistently voted in favor of HRC resolutions condemning the violations committed against the Syrian people since March 2011.

The report stresses that Russia is involved in committing violations that constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes in Syria, adding that this explains both why Russia voted, before its membership was suspended, against all HRC resolutions on Syria and why it fears the work of the COI. Meanwhile, the report stresses that most of the world’s countries refuse to support crimes against humanity and war crimes in Syria.
The report calls on all the world’s states to respect HRC resolutions and comply with them, to stand in solidarity with just causes, and to always vote in favor of HRC resolutions condemning those nations that excessively violate fundamental human rights like the Syrian regime.
The report adds that authoritarian, dictatorial states, such as China, Venezuela, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, and Algeria, must not be elected to the HRC, because their very nature means they will always vote against human rights worldwide, with their votes on Syria serving as a stark example of this.
The report also makes a number of additional recommendations.

Download the full report

Paris – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) revealed in a report released today that it has documented 10,024 deaths resulting from the earthquake that hit northwestern Syria and southern Turkey on the dawn of Monday, February 6, 2023, including 4,191 Syrians who died in non-regime areas, and 394 who died in regime-held areas, while 5,439 Syrian refugees died in Turkey.
The report explains that SNHR felt there was an imperative need to respond to the devastating earthquake and to document the massive number of Syrians who died due to the earthquake, and how the late arrival of humanitarian assistance may have led to the preventable deaths of more Syrians. As such, the group took it upon itself to undertake this onerous task that posed additional challenges despite SNHR team’s wealth of experience and network of members and trusted contacts spread across Syria.
Fadel Abdul Ghany, Executive Director of SNHR, says:
“We have expended all of this effort in order for relief organizations, especially UN bodies, to be able to access and utilize the lists of victims to compensate the victims’ families. However, this will not happen if relief aid keeps going to organizations that are designed to steal UN relief aid. We also cannot forget that the Syrian regime and its allies are responsible for displacing millions of Syrians to northwestern Syria. Not only have the Syrian regime and its allies cut off their access to water, electricity, and services, but they have also continued to target them in their bombing operations for years. It is simply inconceivable that after all of this, the Syrian regime will, with honesty and integrity, deliver aid to the very people it targeted.”
The report documents the death of 10,024 Syrians resulting from the earthquake and the late arrival of UN and international humanitarian assistance. These are distributed according to areas of control into: 4,191 Syrians who died in areas not controlled by the Syrian regime in northwestern Syria, 394 Syrians who died in regime-held areas, and 5,439 Syrian refugees who died in Turkey. The report also includes graphs illustrating the distribution of victims according to the location of their deaths in Syria, with others showing the distribution of the 5,439 Syrian refugees who died in Turkey according to their Syrian governorates of origin.
As the report reveals, northwestern Syria houses approximately 3.2 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) from across Syria who fled the murderous brutality and multiple violations of the Syrian regime and its allies, namely Iran and Russia. Women and children account for approximately 75 percent of the total population of IDPs. Since 2011, no more than two percent of all IDPs have returned to their original areas despite these being located only a few kilometers away from the tents where they now live, simply because they are justifiably afraid of further violations by the Syrian regime which not only displaced them but has since carried out hundreds of deliberate attacks against civilians and vital infrastructure in the areas to which they fled. Furthermore, the report notes, international observers often turn a blind eye to the fact that the Syrian regime has deliberately cut off IDPs’ access to all basic services, including water and electricity, even while insisting that it should be the sole recipient and distributor of all UN humanitarian assistance due to its control of the Syrian state. The report adds that all of these reasons led to the establishment of the cross-border relief aid delivery mechanism without the need for obtaining the Syrian regime’s permission, and they still very much exist. The report stresses that SNHR has even documented Syrian regime attacks on areas that were affected by the earthquake shortly after it took place, which provide yet more harrowing demonstrations of the regime’s unparalleled brutality and viciousness.
The report also stresses that the overwhelming majority of the aid provided to help ease Syrians’ suffering, as much as 90 percent of the total, does not reach those affected for whom it is intended, as confirmed by the vast number of authoritative investigations, studies and reports published by various international bodies since 2015, including by humanitarian groups such as the Human Rights Watch (HRW) and newspapers such as The Guardian. This is because the Syrian regime has coordinated and engineered the theft of relief aid in an orchestrated and calculated manner that relies on its being distributed through official organizations which are, in reality, completely subservient to the regime, the most notable of which are: the Syria Trust for Development, the Civil Defense, and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent. One of the most obvious indicators strongly implying that these organizations steal vast quantities of aid is the fact that none of them release financial transparency reports. There is no way to discover the amount of funding these organizations receive, or how and where these funds are spent. These organizations also do not disclose any information about their managerial or organizational hierarchy and employ individuals with close ties to the Syrian regime and to the heads of its security agencies.
The report further stresses that the provision of humanitarian assistance, which is a noble endeavor, should not be debased by its being turned into a means of funding and supporting a regime involved in crimes against humanity against its people. The report adds that it is impossible to rely on the same entity that caused the displacement of millions of IDPs, abandoned its responsibilities to them, and bombed their camps and the areas to which they fled, i.e., the Syrian regime, to deliver UN humanitarian assistance and compensate victims and their families.
The report calls on the UN and the donor states to establish an international support platform to handle the coordination of humanitarian assistance in northwestern Syria, which would be an alternative channel to the UN. The report also recommends that relief aid sent to those Syrian relief organizations which have demonstrated their honesty and integrity should be increased both in quantity and quality, especially in the form of providing shelter, focusing particularly on meeting the needs of women and children, in addition to making other recommendations.

Download the full report

Press release: (Download the full report below)

Paris – the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) revealed in a report released today that it has so far documented the deaths of 7,259 Syrians resulting from the earthquake that hit northwestern Syria and southern Turkey on the dawn of Monday, February 6, 2023. Of these, 2,534 died in areas not controlled by the Syrian regime, and 394 died in regime-controlled areas, while 4,331 Syrian refugees died in Turkey. The report also reveals that the Syrian regime has stolen roughly 90 percent of the aid intended for the earthquake victims.
The 6-page report is an update of the previous recorded death toll of victims killed both by the earthquake and the late arrival of UN and international aid. The report notes that SNHR’s victims team, which normally work on documenting extrajudicial killings, does not usually record cases of natural death or deaths due to disasters. However, given the extraordinary circumstances and the inescapably dire need, and relying on the team’s extensive experience, wide network of relations, and geographical dispersion, this team was tasked with responding to this special case. The report lists some of the extraordinary challenges in this process, most notably the fact that a great number of the team’s members were themselves affected by the earthquake, with some dying as a result. The second major challenge facing the team is the massive number of victims, compared even to the largest single massacre committed by the Syrian regime, in addition to the wide geographical area across which the earthquake victims died. In this context, the report documents the bare minimum of information, with further updates to come at a later date.
Fadel Abdul Ghany, Executive Director of SNHR, says:
“Delivering aid through the Syrian regime and the organizations founded by the security apparatus of the Syrian regime might take the donor states and supporting organizations away from the framework of humanitarian work to supporting and funding the terrorism and crimes against humanity that the Syrian regime has committed against its people. While we acknowledge the good intentions of the donor states and organizations, we must stress that the Syrian regime does not steal only 30 or 40 percent of the aid donated – in reality, the Syrian regime pillages up to 90 percent of the aid delivered.”
The report reveals that a total of 7,259 Syrians, including approximately 2,153 children and 1,524 women, are so far known to have died due to the earthquake, with the death toll in Syria increased by the late arrival of UN and international aid between February 6, 2023, and February 27, 2023,. This death toll is distributed according to location between 2,534 victims who died in non-regime areas in northwestern Syria, 394 who died in regime areas, and 4,331 Syrian refugees who died in Turkey. The report includes graphs outlining the distribution of the victims who died by governorate, and categorizing the victims who died in Turkey by their Syrian governorate of origin rather than the location of their deaths.
As the report further explains, the earthquake’s death toll included 73 medical personnel, five media workers, 62 humanitarian workers, and four civil defense members in northwestern Syria.
The report also stresses that the idea that ‘delivering some aid is better than nothing’, while true in ordinary circumstances, has failed miserably in Syria where these circumstances are absent. This statement was the answer given by the majority of the relief workers in the areas under the Syrian regime’s control to queries about this aid. This failure, as the report explains, stems from three main points:
First: The Syrian regime, not the victims who are effectively its hostages, is the primary beneficiary of this aid and of the vast majority of aid donated since 2014. The Syrian regime and its military forces openly steal as much as 90 percent of all aid delivered, which is then distributed to regime insiders and sold at a profit in regime-controlled areas. This being the case, delivering aid donated for earthquake victims or others via the Syrian regime is, effectively, providing support for a regime involved in terrorizing its people, using chemical weapons, and committing multiple other crimes against humanity.
Secondly, none of the organizations operating in the areas under the Syrian regime’s control have any autonomy, whether we’re talking about the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC), the Civil Defense, or any other groups founded by the regime’s security apparatus. International organizations, however, are required to deal solely with these regime-controlled entities, effectively handing control of aid to the regime’s security apparatus and enabling it to pillage the vast majority of this aid. This is the same security apparatus that is involved in crimes against humanity, including torturing people to death and disappearing nearly 100,000 Syrian citizens.
Finally, the Syrian regime is exploiting the flow of humanitarian assistance and the sympathy expressed towards the earthquake victims and survivors for political gain. In reality, the Syrian regime does not care about the Syrian people, whether in the areas under its control or those outside its control.
The report stresses that there is a dire and urgent need to increase humanitarian assistance to the families of the victims and the displaced, more especially in the wake of the devastating February 6 earthquake, across all areas of Syria, especially in northwestern Syria which is suffering from severe overpopulation, with hundreds of thousands of people forcibly displaced by the Syrian regime’s violations who were already suffering terribly even before the recent earthquake.
The report adds that the noble mission of humanitarian assistance should not be perverted and debased to turn it into a tool of funding and support for a regime involved in perpetrating multiple crimes against humanity against its own people which continue to this day.
The report calls on the UN and donor states to establish an international support platform to manage the process of coordinating humanitarian assistance in northwestern Syria. Such a body would provide an autonomous alternative option, in addition to the UN, with a branch of this body being devoted to negotiating with the Syrian regime as one entity, and would oversee the delivery and distribution of aid in regime areas. The report also recommends that the quality and quantity of humanitarian assistance, most particularly shelter, designated for Syrian relief organizations that have proved their integrity and autonomy should be increased, with a special focus on the needs of women and children.

Download the full report

Press release: (Download the full report below)

Paris – The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) revealed in its report released today that it has documented the deaths of 6,319 Syrians due to the earthquake that hit northwestern Syria and southern Turkey at around dawn on Monday, August 6, 2023. Of these victims, 2,157 died in areas of Syria not controlled by the Syrian regime, 321 in regime-controlled areas, while 3,841 Syrian refugees died in Turkey. The group stresses that an investigation should be launched into the reason why the UN’s and international community’s response was days late, with this lateness itself leading to more Syrian deaths which could have been prevented by a prompt response, asserting that those responsible must be held accountable.
The 10-page report stresses that the region of northwestern Syria has been worst affected by the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that hit southern Turkey and northern Syria on February 6, 2023. The report explains that this is due to the severe overpopulation in the region caused by the large waves of internally displaced persons (IDPs) fleeing there after being forcibly displaced by multiple violations perpetrated against them, overwhelmingly by the Syrian regime. Even more tragic, the report adds, these already traumatized people have had to repeatedly relive the horrors of indiscriminate bombardment by the Syrian regime in the IDP camps where they’re living, even after fleeing their homes and local areas. According to the report, the aforementioned overpopulation resulting from these waves of displacement and the deliberate targeting of infrastructure and vital facilities for years by the Syrian regime and its Russian ally made the effects of the earthquake even more catastrophic and tragic in northwestern Syria than in any other affected areas.
The report sheds light on the challenges and difficulties in the processes of documenting the victims who died due to the earthquake and the late response by the UN and the international community. Among those challenges has been the fact that SNHR’s own field team in Syria, particularly in the areas hit by the earthquake, has been badly affected by the quake, as has SNHR’s team in the Turkish cities hit by the earthquake in the south of the country, with many members losing their homes. These conditions have only intensified the difficulty of continuing our constant documentation processes compared with similar incidents. The massive number of deaths resulting from the earthquake, spanning a vast geographical area, has presented another challenge in the documentation process, in addition to the fact that the earthquake left entire cities, towns and villages, including the towns of Jendeires and Harem in northwest Syria, almost completely destroyed. In this context, the report reflects the bare minimum of events and of the consequent suffering caused by the earthquake to date. In fact, the earthquake death toll is still rising.
Fadel Abdul Ghany, Director of SNHR, says,
“The families of the victims who died in the earthquake have the right to know why the UN and international response was days late, even though the first 24 hours is the most urgent and essential time window in such cases. The UN should launch an internal investigation, while international human rights groups and investigative journalism outlets should shed light on this dark side of the story. The donor states must learn from these disastrous mistakes and build an international impartial coordination platform that could play a crucial central role in relief efforts and in the distribution of international aids in non-regime territories.”
The report documents the death of 6,319 Syrians who, according to the report, died as a result of the earthquake and the late UN and international response between February 6 and February 14, 2023. These deaths are distributed according to the territories where they took place, as follows: 2,157 died in non-regime territories, 321 died in regime territories, and 3,841 Syrian refugees died in Turkey. Providing a graphic summary of these figures , the report provides graphs showing the distribution of the victims in Syria according to their place of death, while categorizing the Syrian victims who died in Turkey according to their Syrian governorate of origin.
The report also examines the response of the main UN rescue and aid agencies, namely the UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC), the International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG), the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), the Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC), and the International Organization for Migration (IOM). All of these agencies, the report notes, completely failed to properly or adequately respond to the humanitarian needs of the earthquake victims in northwestern Syria. The report calls on all of these agencies to identify and explain the reasons for their response being prevented and delayed for vital days, resulting in many more wholly preventable deaths. As the report further notes, SNHR believes there are other, political factors in play that have yet to be revealed which must be investigated to expose the true reason behind this lethally late response, stressing that responding to any earthquake in the first 12-24 hours immediately following it is critically important. The arrival of massively inadequate quantities of aid four days late is simply a shocking sign of shameful indifference and negligence towards the lives of those trapped under the rubble sending a wholly negative message to the families of these innocent victims, that they are simply to be abandoned.
The report also question the UN’s decision not to issue a distress call for the northwestern region of Syria, as it did for the areas under Syrian regime control, which, accordingly, received large quantities of aid, while stressing that the Syrian regime has demonstrated yet again that it is by far the worst offender in terms of the theft of UN aid, with regime insiders and military forces stealing as much as 90 percent of the aid donated.

The report stresses that the UN’s late response, which left the local civil society organizations alone to deal with the overwhelming horrors and effects of the earthquake entirely on their own led directly to the wholly preventable deaths under the rubble of many people whose lives could have been saved by a swift response. Furthermore, the UN’s woefully inadequate response has been in no way propionate to the magnitude of the earthquake in northwestern Syria. Some mechanisms put in place for responding to disasters were invoked late, while others were not invoked at all, such as issuing an urgent distress call to mobilize efforts and teams from across the globe. The report adds that the donor states’ almost complete reliance on UN agencies in such aid operations, even while fully being aware of these bodies’ slowness and bureaucracy, means that those states share responsibility for the fatal lateness of the humanitarian response.
In the report, SNHR calls on the UN to launch an internal investigation into the lateness of the arrival of humanitarian aid in northwestern Syria, adding that the UNDAC must also be deployed to northwestern Syria as soon as possible to save and rescue whoever and whatever is left, along with the INSARAG, which must be deployed to respond to the challenges now being confronted by the already overwhelmed residents of northwestern Syria due to the earthquake. The report also calls for the establishment of an international support platform capable of handling the coordination of humanitarian assistance in northwestern Syria, which would act as a much-needed additional option supplementing the UN, with the report also making a number of other recommendations.

Download the full report