As many as 180,000 children have been forced to flee their homes in Dara’a province since the start of the onslaught the Assad regime forces and Iranian terrorist militias launched to recapture rebel-held areas in the province with Russian aerial support, the UN children’s agency said.
In a statement on Friday, UNICEF said that an estimated 180,000 children have been forced to flee their homes with little resource for protection, shelter or assistance in the largest wave of displacement to hit southern Syria since the start of the seven-year-long war.
The agency said it had received “horrific reports” from southern Syria, including the death of an entire family in the city of Dara’a. “This brings the reported number of children killed to 65 in southern Syria alone in less than three weeks.”
The Syrian Coalition earlier said that the Assad regime and its allies have committed widespread crimes in Dara’a province to force the local population to agree to surrender. It said that these acts constituted war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The Coalition held the international community full responsibility in view of its silence about the ongoing gross violations and its failure to implement international resolutions on Syria.
The Coalition said that all parties that played a role in the deal that was forced on the people of Dara’a bear full legal, political and ethical responsibility, including for the mass forced displacement of the people, killings against civilians, and the destruction of infrastructure.
“The Coalition expresses its disappointment at the failure of the UN Security Council to condemn the crimes of genocide and mass forced displacement in Dara’a province.”
The Coalition also voiced its disappointment at the “failure of the Council’s permanent members to assume their responsibilities in this regard, including the United States, which was a guarantor state but which later renounced its commitments and left the Syrian people and easy prey for the Russian-Iranian brutal onslaught.” (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department)
