The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) said that at least 88 people were killed across Syria in April, including 10 who died under torture, the majority of whom died while in the custody of the Assad regime.
In a report issued on Friday, the monitoring group said that the victims included 14 children and seven women. It added that 11 civilians were killed by the Assad regime forces, including one child, while three others, including a child, were killed by ISIS. Seven other civilians were killed at the hands of Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham, while one civilian was killed by unknown gunmen. The PYD militia was responsible for the death of two people, while another 54 civilians, including 12 children and seven women, were killed at the hands of groups that the Network said were unidentifiable.
Of those killed under torture, seven died while in the Assad regime’s custody, one at the hands of Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham, one at the hands of the PYD militia, and one another, a child, at the hands of the Lebanese forces. The death toll included a media activist who was killed by the Assad regime.
The Network said that the Assad regime is mainly to blame for deaths caused by the Covid 19 pandemic in Syria, pointing out that the Assad regime and Russian forces destroyed the majority of medical centers in northwestern Syria as well as killed and detained hundreds of medical workers.
Moreover, the Network affirmed that the Assad regime violated international humanitarian law, customary international law, and all UN Security Council resolutions, most notably resolutions 2139, 2042, and 2254.
The rights group called on the UN Security Council to take additional measures pursuant to the issuance of resolution 2254 as it stressed the need to refer Syria to the International Criminal Court and to hold accountable all those involved, including the Russian regime which has been involved in war crimes.
The report called for resorting to the principle of the Responsibility to Protect in view of the failure of all political agreements, especially the ceasefire deals and the Astana agreements to ensure protection for civilians,. It also stressed the need to resort to Chapter VII of the UN Charter to protect civilians in Syria. (Source: SOC’s Media Department)
