human rights
SYRIA
Warring parties in the Syrian conflict continue to disregard human rights and humanitarian law protections. Over 400,000 have died since 2011. The Syrian government, with the support of its allies, raced to secure territories, using prohibited chemical weapons, unlawful indiscriminate attacks, and withholding humanitarian aid, while anti-government groups indiscriminately attacked government-held areas and prevented civilians fleeing. Both groups carried out arbitrary detentions, kidnappings and torture. While the battle against ISIS is winding down, civilian casualties from US-led coalition airstrikes increased, and their Kurdish-led allies continued to restrict the movement of those displaced from ISIS areas. As active conflict decreased, Russia and Syria called for refugees to return and Syria passed laws to facilitate reconstruction even as it continued to violate human rights.
- Human Rights Watch
Parties to the Syrian armed conflict continued to commit with impunity serious violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes, and gross human rights abuses. Government and allied forces carried out indiscriminate attacks and direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects using aerial and artillery bombing, including with internationally banned weapons, killing and injuring hundreds of people. Government forces maintained lengthy sieges on densely populated areas, restricting access to humanitarian and medical aid to thousands of civilians. Government forces lifted the siege of Eastern Ghouta in April; this was followed by restrictions that impeded some of the displaced civilians from returning to the formerly besieged areas. Security forces arrested and continued to detain tens of thousands of people, including peaceful activists, humanitarian workers, lawyers and journalists, subjecting many to enforced disappearance and torture or other ill-treatment, and causing deaths in detention. Government forces disclosed the fate of some of the disappeared but failed to provide the families with remains or information around the circumstances of the disappearances. The government violated the right to housing. Armed opposition groups with the support of Turkey subjected civilians in Afrin to a wide range of abuses, including confiscation and looting of property, and arbitrary detention, torture and other ill-treatment. The US-led coalition failed to acknowledge or investigate the large scale of civilian deaths and destruction caused by their 2017 bombing campaign on Raqqa against the armed group calling itself Islamic State (IS). By the end of 2018, the conflict had caused the deaths of more than 400,000 people and displaced more than 11 million people within and outside Syria.
- Amnesty International