GENEVA, Switzerland — The upsurge in violence in Syria, combined with
its plummeting economy, is making life increasingly bleak for civilians, United
Nations investigators said Tuesday.
اضافة اعلان
The UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria said war crimes were still being
committed and the increase in fighting was only adding to
Syria's woes and
making it unsafe for refugees to return.
Syria's war has killed an estimated 500,000 people and displaced millions
since it started with the brutal suppression of anti-government protests in
2011.
"The
overall situation in Syria looks increasingly bleak,"
commissioner Karen Koning AbuZayd said in a statement.
"In addition to intensifying violence, the economy is plummeting, Mesopotamia's
famous riverbeds are at their driest in decades, and widespread community
transmission of Covid-19 seems unstoppable by a health care system decimated by
the war and lacking oxygen and vaccines," AbuZayd said, adding it was
"no time" for refugees to return.
The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria was mandated by
the UN Human Rights Council to investigate and record all violations of
international law since March 2011 in the country.
Its latest report covers incidents between July 1, 2020 and June 30 this
year.
The three-member panel said there seemed to be no moves to unite the country
or seek reconciliation, with incidents of arbitrary detention by government
forces continuing unabated.
The report said tens of thousands of Syrians were still desperately awaiting
news from missing and disappeared loved ones, while tens of thousands more were
being unlawfully detained.
Recent months had seen increased fighting and violence in the northwest,
northeast and south of the country, it said.
Commissioner Hanny Megally called the siege of Daraa al-Balad an unfolding
tragedy.
"It's only two or three months into it but it's the same tactic of
preventing food, medicine and other goods coming in and preventing people from
leaving," he told a press conference in Geneva.
Commission chair Paulo Pinheiro said it was "scandalous" that an
estimated 40,000 children — half of them Iraqi and the rest from around 60
other countries — were still being held in Al-Hol and other detention camps for
the displaced and families of defeated jihadists, because their home countries
refuse to take them back in.
"Punishing children for the sins of their parents cannot be
justified," he told the press conference.
The commission will present its report to the Human Rights Council on
September 23.
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