A total of 1,134 civilians were killed in Syria in the month of March despite the ceasefire which has been in place since December 29, 2016, a rights group said.
In a report issued on Sunday, the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) said that regime forces, their allied Iranian-backed militias and their Russian ally were responsible for the overwhelming majority of the killings.
According to the report, regime forces were responsible for the death of 417 civilians, including 61 children and 46 women. Around 19 more civilians were killed under torture in Assad’s prisons in March.
At least 224 civilians, including 151 children and 42 women, were killed in the ongoing Russian bombing campaign in the same month.
Militias of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) were responsible for the death of 11 civilians, including 2 children and 3 women, the rights group said.
The victims also included 110 civilians, including 19 children and 7 women, who were killed by the ISIS extremist group.
Around 260 more civilians, including 70 children and 34 women, were killed by the international anti-ISIS coalition.
The report also listed 84 civilians, including 6 children and 9 women, who the Network said drowned in the sea trying to reach Europe and killed in bombings that the Network said were untraceable.
The Network stressed that the Assad regime and Russian forces violated the provisions of international humanitarian law that protect the right to life. It noted that dozens of attacks by these forces constitute mass murder as evidence and eyewitness accounts confirmed that more than 90% of these attacks were directed against civilians and civilian targets.
The report described the Russian regime, foreign militias, and ISIS as foreign parties actively participating in the killings, stressing that they bear direct legal and judicial responsibility for the ongoing carnage in Syria. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department)
