Secretary-General of the Syrian Opposition Coalition (SOC), Haitham Rahma, stressed that the international silence about the Assad regime’s crimes gives the regime and its allies a green light to commit more crimes against the Syrian people. He pointed out that these crimes put the international community and UN resolution in front of a moral and humanitarian challenge.
These remarks came in response to the bloody shelling that the Assad regime launched on the town of Ma’aret al-Naasan in rural Idlib on Saturday. The attack killed six civilians, including two children and two women.
Rahma wondered about the feasibility of the UN resolutions calling for the protection of human rights after ten years of killing and massacres carried out by the Assad regime and its Russian and Iranian backers, which claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians.
Rahma called for identifying those responsible for implementing these resolutions and monitoring their implementation on the ground. He stressed that it is a total shame that the international community considers civilian casualties as mere numbers to document and attach to statements of condemnation, while failing to implement any mechanism that protects civilians from indiscriminate attacks.
Moreover, Rahma stressed the need for a swift, urgent intervention by the UN to put an end to the attacks targeting civilians in northern Syria. He made it clear that the Assad regime, Russia and Iran have targeted the liberated areas of northern Syria more than 84 times since the beginning of 2022, killing more than 31 civilians and wounding 73 others, according to humanitarian organizations working on the ground.
Rahma reiterated that there will be no solution in Syria without the overthrow of the Assad regime and accountability for all its symbols, chief among them is the head of the regime. He stressed that absent accountability, there will be no outcome that meets the Syrian people’s aspirations for freedom, dignity, justice, and democracy.
(Source: SOC’s Media Department)
