Assad Regime Used Cluster Bombs In Besieged Opposition-held Area, Watchdog Says
04 December 2017Agencies
Amnesty International said on Thursday that the Assad regime has used
internationally banned cluster munitions in attacks on the besieged
opposition-held suburb of Damascus, accusing it of committing war crimes on
"an epic scale."
Eastern Ghouta, a opposition-held suburb northeast of the Syrian capital, has
been under a tightening siege since 2013 and is already facing a humanitarian
crisis, including the highest recorded malnutrition rate since the conflict
began in 2011.
Some 400,000 civilians, half of them children, are believed trapped there.
Based on interviews with activists in eastern Ghouta and verification of open
source videos and photographs, Amnesty said at least 10 civilians were killed
in November because of the regime's use of the banned Soviet-made cluster
munitions.
The indiscriminate weapons, banned in over 100 countries, gravely endanger
civilians because of their indiscriminate nature, Amnesty said.
"The Syrian government has shown callous disregard to the lives of the
hundreds of thousands of people living in Eastern Ghouta," said Philip Luther,
Amnesty International's Research and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and
North Africa. "But this recent escalation in attacks - clearly targeting
civilians and civilian infrastructure using internationally banned cluster
munitions - is horrific."
Amnesty said the cluster munitions first appeared in Syria after Russia began
strikes against anti-regime groups in September 2015. Witnesses interviewed by
Amnesty said they saw cluster munitions projectiles — small bombs strapped to
parachutes — used in densely populated market and residential areas.
The United Nations has said it is concerned about the ongoing violence in
Eastern Ghouta, which has intensified since Nov.14.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the civil
war, has recorded that at least 150 civilians, including 35 children, were
killed since Nov. 14 in the suburb, when a renewed round of intense fighting
began.
Russia informed the U.N. on Tuesday that the Assad regime had agreed to a
48-hour truce in the area at the start of a new round of U.N.-sponsored talks
in Geneva.
Diplomats are hoping that the parties to the Syrian conflict may be ready to
make some forward progress in talks, which formally got under way with the
arrival of the regime delegation in Switzerland on Wednesday. There is little
optimism, however, that the current round — the eight so far — would achieve
any significant breakthroughs.
On Thursday, the Assad regime and opposition delegations in Geneva met
separately with the UN envoy, Staffan de Mistura.
Assad regime airstrikes kill 20 civilians in Eastern Ghouta
At least 20 civilians were killed Sunday in Syrian regime attacks in Eastern
Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus, said a civil defense organization based in the
area.
Dozens of others were injured in the attacks which targeted opposition-held
areas of Arbin, Beit Sava, Misraba, and Hammuriya, according to the White
Helmets.
Officially known as Syria Civil Defense, the White Helmets is a volunteer
organization that operates in moderate opposition-held parts of the
war-stricken country.
Eastern Ghouta falls within a network of de-escalation zones -- endorsed by
Turkey, Russia and Iran -- in which acts of aggression are expressly
forbidden.
Nevertheless, regime forces have maintained their attacks on the district,
leaving dozens of civilians dead or injured.
According to local civil defense sources, at least 160 civilians have been
killed by regime forces in the area in the period from Nov. 14 to Dec. 3.
Syria has only just begun to emerge from a devastating civil war that began in
early 2011 when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with
unexpected ferocity.
Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the fighting
and more than 10 million displaced, according to the UN.
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