UN investigators warn that the humanitarian crisis in Syria threatens to spiral out of control as violence escalates and a collapsing economy keeps people mired in poverty and despair, 13 years after the country’s civil war began.
“While the world’s attention and resources are diverted to other serious political and humanitarian crises, Syria is sinking deeper into a quagmire of misery and despair,” Paulo Pinheiro, chair of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria, told the UN Human Rights Council on Friday.
In presenting the latest report of the three-member commission, Pinheiro painted a bleak picture of a society that has fallen into an abyss of “multiple failures and missed opportunities.”
“We have witnessed 13 years of internal armed conflict caused by the Syrian state’s violent and repressive response to peaceful protests,” he said. “Our report documents continued arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment of detainees by state agents.”
The report said fighting has intensified on multiple front lines, as disparate military forces use heavy artillery to maintain territorial control and resort to increased violence against perceived political opponents.
It accuses these militias of committing a litany of human rights violations and abuses against the civilian population, increasing fears of “a full-scale war.”
For example, the report states that in the northwest of the country, the conflict between a Syrian terrorist organization, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, and some factions of the Syrian National Army continues to “arbitrarily detain, torture and disappear civilians and people perceived to be political opponents.”
The report documents an intensification of fighting by Syrian government forces in the Idlib region of northwestern Syria, where civilians have been killed, injured and maimed “in unlawful attacks” with cluster munitions in densely populated urban centres.
According to the report, more than 150 civilians, half of them women and children, were killed or injured by government forces. The vast majority of them were killed or injured in indiscriminate ground attacks near frontline villages and towns, “in violation of international humanitarian law.”
“Such attacks could amount to war crimes,” the report said, noting that “airstrikes by Syria’s ally Russia have again claimed casualties.”
“The Russian Aerospace Forces may have failed to take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians, in violation of international humanitarian law,” the report’s authors say.
Syria’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Haydar Ali Ahmad, responded to the report by questioning the commission’s mandate and calling the commissioners “mere tools to implement the specific agendas” of certain Western powers.
“What is the point of such mandates when we are faced with a commission of inquiry whose task is not to investigate but to establish the West’s misleading narrative on the situation in Syria?” he said. “Unfortunately, it has betrayed the principles of impartiality, objectivity, independence and transparency.”
Commission President Pinheiro said he was particularly alarmed by “the increased regional tensions resulting from the conflict” in Israel and Lebanon.
“These incidents have led to an intensification of Israeli airstrikes – and last week a raid in Syria – targeting Iranian officials and militias across Syria, causing civilian casualties on at least three occasions,” he said. “Iran-affiliated groups and the United States have intensified their mutual attacks in northeastern Syria since the start of the Gaza war.”
He warned of the dangers to the system of international law itself “if member states charged with upholding it are seen to be failing in that obligation,” a sentiment echoed by Geir O. Pedersen, the UN special envoy for Syria.
At a Security Council press conference on Friday, Mr. Pedersen said he was deeply alarmed by reports of “a large number of communications devices exploding in Lebanon as well as in Syria … causing casualties, including children, and subsequent Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon and Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israel.”
“There is a clear and present danger of a broader regional war that would draw the Syrian people into its crosshairs,” he said.
Pinheiro cited multiple other ongoing military operations in different regions of Syria, carried out by various military groups with the aim of seizing land, extorting money and other assets for personal gain, regardless of the costs.
“Civilians continue to be killed daily in a senseless war that has left the country economically and politically shattered, significantly eroding the social fabric,” he said.
According to the United Nations, more than 306,000 civilians have been killed in Syria since the civil war began in 2011, and nearly 14 million have been forcibly displaced, 7.2 million inside Syria and 5.6 million as refugees in neighboring countries, across Europe and beyond.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 16.7 million people, or 3 out of 4 people in Syria, are in need of humanitarian assistance. Among them, 13 million are suffering from acute food insecurity and more than 650,000 children under 5 are stunted due to severe malnutrition.
“Living conditions are increasingly desperate and we see the failure of the international community to fund more than a quarter of the UN humanitarian response plan for 2024 ($4.9 billion),” Pinheiro said.
“Overall, Syria’s GDP has fallen by more than half since 2011, a result of the combined effect of the destruction of infrastructure and economic networks, the forced displacement of more than half the population, predatory practices and rampant corruption,” he said.
