The Syrian Negotiations Commission called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the war crimes being committed by the Assad regime and its allies in the province of Dara’a. It demanded an immediate cessation of military operations as they violate international resolutions on Syria.
The Commission condemned the silence of the UN Security Council and its shirking of its legal and political duties to protect Syrian civilians as well as its failure to put an end to the Assad regime’s use of internationally prohibited weapons against civilians.
At least 45,000 people have fled fighting in Dara’a province, heading towards the border with Jordan, the United Nations said on Tuesday.
Jens Laerke, spokesman of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said that civilians including children had been killed and injured and a hospital had been put out of operation by an airstrike.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International called on the Jordanian government to open its borders to people fleeing the regime’s offensive in southern Syria after the Jordanian government has said it will not accept any more Syrian refugees.
Mouna Elkekhia, Amnesty International’s Advisor on Refugee and Migrant Rights, said: “People fleeing war in Syria are in a desperate life-or-death situation, and the Jordanian government cannot simply abandon them.”
“Jordan has a duty to protect refugees from Syria fleeing conflict and persecution, and to allow them to enter the country.”
The Assad regime has recently launched a large-scale military campaign in Dara’a province, carrying out intense airstrikes and heavy artillery bombardment that killed and injured dozens of civilians, including women and children. The bombing campaign has also forced hundreds of families towards the Jordanian border. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department)
