An official of the Syrian Coalition said that casualty figures and records of violations in the last year are yet further proof of the Assad regime and its allied militias’ continued atrocious crimes against Syrian civilians. He pointed out that this “cannot deceive the international community into allowing the rehabilitation of the Assad regime.”
Member of the Coalition’s political committee Mohammed Salim Khatib said that the Assad regime and its allies’ crimes against civilians continue unabated. He added: “Assad will not change his criminal behavior. No one should expect this to happen in the future.”
Khatib called for holding those responsible for crimes in Syria to account as he stressed accountability as an essential part of the political solution in line with the international resolutions, most notably the Geneva Communique of 2012 and UN Security Council Resolution 2254.
Khatib warned against attempts to rehabilitate the Assad regime as such move would risk the resurgence of the terrorist organizations threatening peace efforts in Syria and plunge the country into an endless cycle of violence.
In its annual report, the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) said that the Assad regime and its allied militias bear the responsibility for the overwhelming majority of the 6,964 civilian deaths that were recorded across Syria in 2018.
The Network said that the civilian deaths in 2018 included 1,436 children and 923 women as well as 951 people who were killed under torture in the prisons of the Assad regime. The monitoring group also said that it had recorded no fewer than 270 massacres in Syria in 2018, up from 257 in 2017 and down from 633 in 2016. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department)
