The Syrian Coalition welcomes the report issued by Human Rights Watch (HRW), which revealed that the Assad regime “has carried out hundreds of new indiscriminate attacks over the past year with air-delivered munitions, including improvised weapons such as barrel bombs. The attacks have had a devastating impact on civilians, killing or injuring thousands of people.”
Using satellite imagery, Human Rights Watch identified at least 450 damage sites in 10 towns and villages in the southern Dara’a province and over 1,000 in the northern city of Aleppo over the past year, which suggest widespread use of barrel bombs.
President Khoja said that “the HRW reports further adds to the disappointment over the UN Security Council’s failure to take any steps to stop the Assad regime’s aerial bombing campaigns against civilians and also over its failure to shoulder its responsibilities for maintaining international peace and security.”
He also said that “the report once again raises the need that the UN Security Council immediately activate the UN resolution 2139 to ensure the protection of Syrian civilians, which entails the imposition of safe havens in northern and southern Syria and to protect civilians from Assad’s air force. We call for referring all the violations committed in Syria to the International Criminal Court and for the implementation of the recommendations contained in the HRW report concerning the imposition of an arms embargo on the Assad regime as a punishment for its continued use of devastating barrel bombs in attacks against the civilian population.” (Source: Syrian Coalition)
