New report says Assad regime guilty of a crime against humanity, calls for sanctions against those responsible

Members of the Syrian government forces look on as hundreds of civilians and Syrian rebel forces begin evacuating the last opposition-held district of Waer in the central city of Homs, under a deal with the Syrian regime, December 9, 2015. (AFP/Louai Beshara)
Members of the Syrian government forces look on as hundreds of civilians and Syrian rebel forces begin evacuating the last opposition-held district of Waer in the central city of Homs, under a deal with the Syrian regime, December 9, 2015. (AFP/Louai Beshara)

 

GENEVA, Switzerland — UN investigators accused the Syrian government Monday of “extermination” in its jails and detention centers, saying prisoners have been executed, tortured to death or held in such horrific conditions that they perished.

Thousands of detainees have been killed while being held by different sides in Syria’s brutal conflict since the violence began nearly five years ago, the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria said in its latest report.

The report painted a particularly stark picture of prisons and detention centers run by the Syrian authorities.

“The mass scale of deaths of detainees suggests that the government of Syria is responsible for acts that amount to extermination as a crime against humanity,” commission head Paulo Pinheiro told reporters in Geneva.

From left to right, United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Syria, Vitit Muntarbhorn, Carla del Ponte, Karen Abuzayd and Chairman Paulo Sergio Pinheiro are seen during their presentation of the commission's latest report on the situation in the war-ravaged country to the UN Human Rights Council on September 16, 2014 in Geneva. (AFP/FABRICE COFFRINI)
From left to right, United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Syria, Vitit Muntarbhorn, Carla del Ponte, Karen Abuzayd and Chairman Paulo Sergio Pinheiro are seen during their presentation of the commission’s latest report on the situation in the war-ravaged country to the UN Human Rights Council on September 16, 2014 in Geneva. (AFP/FABRICE COFFRINI)

The report adds to a huge body of evidence from the commission and others, detailing horrific abuse, torture and killings in Syrian-run jails.

The so-called “Caesar Report” released in early 2014, for instance, contained some 55,000 photographs depicting the tortured and abused bodies of around 11,000 people it said had died in Syrian jails during the first two years of the conflict.

Monday’s report, which stretches back to the beginning of the conflict in March 2011 and through last November, is based on 621 interviews, including with more than 200 former detainees who witnessed one or more deaths in custody.

“Nearly every surviving detainee has emerged from custody having suffered unimaginable abuses,” Pinheiro said.

The survivors had detailed how their cellmates were beaten to death during interrogation or in their cells, or left to die of severe injuries sustained from gruesome torture.

Decrying the atmosphere of “total impunity” reigning in Syria, commission member Carla Del Ponte slammed the UN Security Council for “doing nothing.”

The commission, which has repeatedly called on the Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court, also called Monday for “targeted sanctions” against the people, agencies and groups suspected of being behind the violations.

As reported by The Times of Israel