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Solitudinem fecerunt,
pacem appelunt
Publius Gaius Cornelius Tacitus

Syria - 2024

In early 2024 Syria experienced a wave of violence not seen since 2020, the UN Syria Commission of Inquiry warned in a report. Across multiple frontlines, parties to the conflict have attacked civilians and infrastructure in ways likely amounting to war crimes, while an unprecedented humanitarian crisis is plunging Syrians into ever deepening despair. “Since October, Syria has seen the largest escalation in fighting in four years. With the region in turmoil, a determined international effort to contain the fighting on Syrian soil is imperative. Syria, too, desperately needs a ceasefire,” said Paulo Pinheiro, Chair of the Commission. “The Syrian people cannot sustain any further intensification of this devastating, protracted war,” Pinheiro said. “More than 90% now live in poverty, the economy is in freefall amid tightening sanctions, and increased lawlessness is fuelling predatory practices and extortion by armed forces and militia.”

The upsurge in fighting in Syria started on 5 October 2023 when consecutive explosions during a graduation ceremony at a military academy in the government-controlled city of Homs killed at least 63 people, including 37 civilians, and injured scores. Syrian Government and Russian forces responded with bombardments affecting at least 2,300 sites in opposition-controlled areas over just three weeks, killing and injuring hundreds of civilians. Their indiscriminate attacks, which may amount to war crimes, hit well-known and visible hospitals, schools, markets and camps for internally displaced persons, and have since continued.

“Syrian Government forces again used cluster munitions in densely populated areas, continuing devastating and unlawful patterns that we have documented in the past,” said Commissioner Hanny Megally. “The October attacks resulted in some 120,000 people in fleeing, many of them previously displaced several times, including by the devastating earthquakes last February.”

“It should be no surprise that the number of Syrians seeking asylum in Europe last October reached the highest level in seven years,” Megally said. “Syria remains the world’s largest displacement crisis with over 13 million Syrians unable to return to their homes.”

Since the start of the Gaza onslaught, tensions have increased between some of the six foreign armies active in Syria, notably Israel, Iran and the US - raising concerns of a wider conflict. Israel reportedly struck alleged Iran-linked sites and forces in Syria at least 35 times and attacked the Aleppo and Damascus airports, temporarily halting vital UN humanitarian air services. Pro-Iranian militias reportedly attacked US bases in north-east Syria over 100 times, and the US responded with air strikes against pro-Iranian militias in eastern Syria.

Meanwhile, in northeast Syria, the Turkish military accelerated operations against Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in retaliation for an attack claimed by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Ankara in October. Turkish aerial attacks on power plants deprived nearly one million people of water and electricity for weeks, in violation of international humanitarian law. Civilians were also killed in targeted aerial attacks fitting a pattern of Turkish drone strikes. Such attacks may amount to war crimes.

Compounding the violence in the northeast, fragmentation of military alliances and heavy infighting between SDF and a coalition of tribal fighters in Dayr-al-Zawr, saw several unlawful attacks leading to civilian casualties. The ongoing hostilities are fuelled by longstanding grievances that the cash-strapped Kurdish-led self-administration is failing to provide essential services to secure basic rights.

ISIL (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, also known as Da’esh) also stepped up its operations in central Syria, not only on military targets but also on civilians in urban areas in attacks likely amounting to war crimes. Recent reports also indicate that civilians trying to make a living by gathering lucrative truffles are again being killed in the central Syria desert. Clashes also increased on the Syria-Jordanian border between Jordanian forces and drug smugglers, with civilians caught in the middle, killed and injured.

The Syrian Government continued to disappear, torture and ill-treat its detainees, and the Commission documented yet more deaths in custody, including in the infamous Sednaya prison. Four months after the International Court of Justice ordered the Government to prevent torture and destruction of evidence, Syrian authorities still deliberately obstruct and profit from families’ efforts to ascertain the whereabouts and fate of their detained loved ones, engaging in extortion.

In Idlib, Hayat Tahrir el Sham (HTS) continued to commit acts of torture, ill-treatment and unlawful deprivation of liberty, with reports of executions based on summary trials, including for witchcraft, adultery and murder. Several women’s rights organizations suspended their activities owing to threats, denial or delays of permits required by HTS. In areas held by the Syrian National Army (SNA), torture and ill-treatment continued in several detention facilities. Some armed SNA-factions continued to appropriate land and olive harvests belonging to absentee landowners.

“And as much as the world may wish to forget, five years after the fall of Baghuz when ISIL lost its territorial control in Syria, almost 30,000 children are still held in internment camps, prisons or rehabilitation centres in northeast Syria,” Commissioner Lynn Welchman said. “These children were already victimized during ISIL’s rule, only to be subjected to years of continued human rights violations and abuses.”

Increased violence along the frontlines in Syria, with continued war crimes on all sides, left civilians in the region fearful of a "large-scale war", a new report from the UN Syria Commission of Inquiry released on 10 September 2024 warned. After over a decade of brutal fighting, the Commission Chair, Paulo Pinheiro, said that deadly dynamics are causing new waves of hostilities. "The recent direct fighting in northeast Syria around Deir-ez-Zor between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on the one hand and Arab tribes, Government forces and Iran-backed militia on the other, evokes the deeply entrenched grievances among the population in this part of northeast Syria," he said.

The report links rising regional tensions stemming from the Gaza war, increased Israeli attacks against Iranian officials and Iranian-backed forces across Syria, which resulted in at least three civilian casualties. The Syria Commission says they are investigating these attacks and noted that Iranian-affiliated groups have also targeted US bases in eastern Syria over 100 times, prompting US counter-attacks. According to news reports, an alleged Israeli strike on a facility that the West alleges produced chemical weapons on 08 Septembe 2024 left at least 18 dead.

Based on investigations by the Commission, increased violence in northwest Syria, including Syrian Government forces' use of cluster munitions in densely populated areas of Idlib, has killed or injured over 150 civilians, half of them women and children. These attacks, along with Russian airstrikes causing civilian casualties, may amount to war crimes, the report said. Another investigation was launched following a massacre in Dara'a by a pro-Government militia which brutally executed 10 people, including two children, by knives or gunshots. These attacks could amount to "war crimes of murder and outrages on personal dignity."

"The events in Daraa bore the hallmarks of some of the most heinous atrocities committed during more than a decade of conflict in Syria," Commissioner Hanny Megally said. "Government forces stationed just metres from the massacre failed to intervene and protect civilians, displaying how Syria is descending deeper into lawlessness."

The report said the Commission believes the Syrian government has continued to torture persons in State custody through sexual and gender-based violence - including other forms - despite an International Court of Justice (ICJ) order to cease these practices. Deaths in State custody were documented, and Syrian authorities impeded families' efforts to locate their arbitrarily detained relatives, often demanding bribes for information or visits. In some cases, families only received official notifications of deaths after a ten-year delay, leaving them in limbo for a decade. These detention practices confirmed ongoing war crimes by various actors and, in State custody, crimes against humanity.

Based on the report's findings, the Commission says "Syria is falling deeper into an alarming humanitarian crisis that threatens to spiral out of control." It was further noted that only a quarter of the humanitarian needs for 2024 are funded while 13,000 civilians face acute food insecurity and more than 650,000 children show signs of stunting from severe malnutrition.