Baladi News - SNHR
SNHR has released its monthly report on the use of barrel bombs by Syrian regime forces for September.
The report notes that the Syrian regime has used improvised, low-cost, highly-effective weapons in order to kill as many victims as possible and inflict as much wide destruction as possible. Barrel bombs have been one of the most-used improvised weapons since March 2011. The first documented barrel bomb attack, according to the report, was on July 18, 2012 in Dael city, northern Daraa governorate, where five civilians were killed in that attack, including one female child and three women while about eight others were injured.
The report says that Syrian regime forces have used 26,577 barrel bombs since the start of the Russian intervention on September 30, 2015, despite the promises made by Vitaly Churkin, the former Russian representative to the United Nations, in October 2015 where he said that the Syrian regime would stop bombing with barrel bombs.
According to the report, September saw a military escalation by Russian-Syrian alliance forces in north Syria that lasted from September 4 until September 11, during which barrel bombs were used by the Syrian regime to terrorize civilians.
The report adds that the Syrian regime used barrel bombs loaded with anti-tank mines in September. This was in al Habeit village, southern suburbs of Idlib on September 10.
The report says that no less than 3,601 have been dropped since the start of 2018 by the Syrian regime, where the month of March recorded the highest number of barrel bombs, followed by April, while the report records that 98 barrel bombs at least were dropped in September and killed two civilians. In addition, barrel bombs were used in one attack on a vital civilian facility (a medical facility)
The report stresses that the Syrian government has violated Security Council resolutions 2139 and 2254, and used barrel bombs in a systematic, widespread manner.
The report notes that barrel bomb attacks are an indiscriminate bombing that targeted defenseless civilians and caused significant damages to protected objects. The damage was too excessive compared to the anticipated military benefit.
According to the report, Through the use of poison gases-loaded barrel bombs, the Syrian regime has violated the rules of the customary international humanitarian law. Secondly, the Syrian regime has violated the CWC treaty. Thirdly, the Syrian regime has violated all relevant Security Council resolutions – particularly 2118, 2209, and 2235. In addition, the use of chemical weapons constitutes a war crime according to ICC’s Rome Statute.
The report notes that Syrian regime forces have used barrel bombs loaded with incendiary ammunition without a military justification, and without taking any measures to reduce the damages to civilians and civilian facilities.
The report calls on the Syrian regime to stop treating the Syrian state as a private family property. In addition, the report calls on the Syrian regime to cease terrorizing the Syrian people by dropping barrel bombs, shoulder all legal and material consequences, and compensate the victims and their families from the resources of the Syrian state.
The report calls on the Security Council to ensure the serious implementation of its resolutions. Also, the report calls on the four permanent state members to apply pressure on the Russian government to cease its support for the Syrian regime, while the report adds that an arms embargo should be imposed on the Syrian regime.