To mark the seventh anniversary of the Syria conflict, Amnesty International on Thursday called on the international community to “assume its responsibilities and urgently act to end the suffering of millions of Syrians.”
Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty’s Middle East research director, called for an end to the bloody assault on besieged civilians in the Damascus suburb of eastern Ghouta.
The international community’s catastrophic failure to take concrete action to protect the people of Syria has allowed the Assad regime to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity with complete impunity, Maalouf added.
“Right now, in Eastern Ghouta 400,000 men, women and children, who have been living under an unlawful government siege for six years, are being starved and indiscriminately bombed by the Syrian government with the backing of Russia.”
Impunity for war crimes in Syria has caused more suffering to Syrian civilians trapped in areas under siege by the Assad regime,” Maalouf added, noting that this every year proves us wrong.
The United Nations said that the Assad regime and its allied militias had committed war crimes in Syria, noting that at least 600 civilians have been killed in the last two months alone. These crimes amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, the UN stressed.
The UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria on Thursday released a report condemning pervasive sexual and gender-based violence in Syria. Pro-regime forces raped civilians during house searches and ground operations in the early stages of the conflict, and later at checkpoints and detention facilities, the report said.
Amnesty International has documented violations in Syria since the beginning of the Syrian revolution in 2011. The rights organization highlighted the plight of those who were forcibly disappeared by regime forces and the regime’s violations in the besieged by regime forces for the past several years. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department + Agencies)
