Nearly a million people have been displaced in Syria over the past few months in yet the largest mass forced displacement operations resulting from military attacks by the Assad regime and its allies, an independent rights group said.
Assad regime forces and their allies continue to commit war crimes in the Damascus suburb of eastern Ghouta, which resulted in the largest mass forced displacement and demographic change in Syria.
In a new report released on Sunday, the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) said that as many as 420,000 people had fled their homes in eastern rural Hama as well as eastern and southern rural Idlib and rural Aleppo over the past five months as a result of violent attacks by the Assad regime and Iranian militias backed by Russian airstrikes.
According to the report, 65,000 people have been displaced from southern rural Aleppo to western rural Aleppo as well as eastern and western rural Idlib. The majority of the IDPs are currently living in makeshift camps erected amongst groves of trees and in farmlands.
The report covers the period between September 19, 2017 and February 15, 2018 after the ‘de-escalation zones’ agreement took effect, which clearly shows the Assad regime and Russia’s continued flouting of international conventions.
According to the report, the ISIS extremist group was responsible for the displacement of thousands of civilians from eastern rural Hama following the breakout of clashes between the extremist group and regime forces. The Network pointed to coordination between these parties against the Free Syrian Army groups and residents of the region.
The Network urged the UN envoy to Syria, Staffan De Mistura not to limit his briefing to the UN Security Council to the violations of Al-Nusra Front and ISIS. It urged the UN envoy to condemn the perpetrators of crimes and massacres and those mainly responsible for the collapse of the de-escalation zones’ agreements.
The Syrian Coalition has warned of the international community’s continued ignoring of the crimes of the Assad regime and Russia against civilians in Syria as well as of the failure to put an end to the waves of mass forced displacement and demographic change operations.
The Coalition called for the referral of the Assad regime’s war crimes to the International Criminal Court as it stressed the need to take new measures to enforce the international resolutions on Syria. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department)
