Syria: New report shows devastating effect of Syrian army bombing of towns in Idlib region

‘Government forces now routinely bomb and shell towns and villages using battlefield weapons’ - Donatella Rovera

Civilians, many of them children, are the main victims of a campaign of relentless and indiscriminate attacks by the Syrian army in the north-west Idlib region of Syria, Amnesty International said in a new report released today, Syria: Indiscriminate attacks terrorize and displace civilians (PDF).

Based on investigations in 26 towns and villages in the Idlib, Jabal al-Zawiya and north Hama regions between 31 August and 11 September, Amnesty’s report documents a series of Syrian government attacks which killed 166 civilians, including 48 children and 20 women, and injured hundreds.

The report provides fresh evidence of a pattern which has emerged in recent weeks in areas where government forces, pushed into retreat by opposition forces, are indiscriminately bombing and shelling lost territory - with disastrous consequences for the civilian population.

Amnesty witnessed daily air bombardment, artillery and mortar strikes in towns and villages throughout the region. The deployment of such imprecise battlefield weapons and munitions against residential areas in recent weeks has resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of civilian casualties. In addition, a high death toll among children in the area underlines the indiscriminate nature of many of the Syrian army attacks.

For example, on 16 September eight civilians - five of them children - were killed and many more injured in a series of air strikes in Kafr Awayed in Jabal al-Zawiya. Residents told Amnesty that seven of the victims were killed at a wedding party and in nearby houses, and a six-year-old boy was killed while buying bread.

In another case, four children - Ghofran Habboub, her brother and two cousins - were killed when their home was bombed on 14 August in the village of Shellakh (near Idlib). A few days later, on 18 August, a large-calibre mortar landed in a street in Ma’arat al-No’man, south of Idlib, killing two five-year-old girls, Hajar Rajwan and Ines Sabbouh, and two cousins - aged ten and 11 - as they played outside their homes.

Meanwhile, on 22 August a bombardment near a grocery store in Kafr Anbel killed 13 civilians, including 31-year-old Zahia al-Aabbi who collected plastic around the village and then sold it to support her mother, sisters, disabled brother and blind father.

Attacks near hospitals shortly after a large influx of casualties, or near bread queues, raise suspicions that such attacks have deliberately targeted large gatherings of civilians, a serious violation of international humanitarian law and a war crime.

Amnesty International Senior Crisis Response Adviser Donatella Rovera, who recently returned from northern Syria, said:

“Government forces now routinely bomb and shell towns and villages using battlefield weapons which cannot be aimed at specific targets, knowing that the victims of such indiscriminate attacks are almost always civilians. Such weapons should never be used in residential areas.

“The plight of the civilian population in this region of Syria has been under-reported as world attention has largely focused on the fighting in Aleppo and Damascus. But the horrors of what the residents of Idlib, Jabal al-Zawiya and north Hama endure every day is just as harrowing. Such indiscriminate attacks constitute war crimes.”

Such indiscriminate attacks constitute war crimes and Amnesty is warning that those responsible should know that they will be held accountable. Amnesty is calling for the UN Security Council to speed up an accountability process by referring the situation in Syria to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to ensure that that the perpetrators of war crimes and other crimes under international law are brought to justice. 

Donatella Rovera added: “Members of the UN Security Council should set aside their political wrangling and put the victims first.

“A referral to the ICC would send a powerful message to those responsible for crimes under international law that the time for impunity is over and would make all parties involved in the conflict - government forces as well as opposition forces - think twice before committing such violations.”

Amnesty’s report also says that opposition fighters have at times also used imprecise weapons (such as mortars) or even inherently indiscriminate weapons (such as home-made rockets) in populated residential areas, further endangering the civilian population.

As the conflict grinds on Amnesty believes there is a danger that opposition fighters, if they succeed in their efforts to procure longer-range weapons, will also step up indiscriminate attacks and other abuses which the international community has been unable and unwilling to stop when committed on such a large scale by government forces. Amnesty is urging all Syrian armed opposition groups - those belonging to the Free Syrian Army and others - to make it clear to those under their command that Syrian government force abuses provide no excuse to commit similar abuses.

• Briefing: Syria: Indiscriminate attacks terrorize and displace civilians (PDF)