Kathryn Maureen Ryan
Impunity Watch, Managing Editor

DAMASCUS, Syria – Urging global cooperation “to impair, isolate and incapacitate” terrorist threats, the United Nations Security Council recently approved measures targeting sources of funding for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) and the Al Qaida affiliated group the Al-Nusra Front. The Security Conceal condemned those parties who are buying oil from the groups, banning all trade in looted antiquities from Iraq and Syria, and calling on governments to end ransom payments for kidnapping victims. The Russian-led resolution was unanimously adopted by the Security Council.

The resolution condemns the destruction and smuggling of cultural heritage in Iraq and Syria by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and the Al-Nusra Front, “whether such destruction is incidental or deliberate, including targeted destruction of religious sites and objects.” The resolution also notes concern that the groups are generating income from engaging directly or indirectly in the looting and smuggling of antiquities and other cultural heritage items.

“What started as opportunistic theft by some has turned into an organized transnational business that is helping fund terror,” said Michael Danti, an archaeologist at Boston University who is currently advising the United States Department of State on how to tackle the issue. “It’s the gravest cultural emergency I’ve seen.” While the Resolution focus on the activities of ISIS and the Al-Nusra Front evidence is mounting the regime of Syrian President of Bashar Al Assad is not only actively participating in the destruction of certain historical heritage sites but in profiteering from the looting of antiquities.

In 2012 an archaeologist trained that Damascus University and another Syrian archeologist college begin cataloging evidence of looting from all sides of the conflict. The team operates in secrecy to protect their work as they attempt to visit and examine sites targeted by looters. “It’s dangerous work. We have to get in and out of a site very quickly,” one of the archeologists said. “The looting has become systematic, and we can’t keep up.” The team operates in secrecy to protect themselves from loyalists and other groups participating in the cultural looting and destruction “The regime knows us and is looking for us,” because of work done to expose looting by Syrian regime loyalists, said the Damascus-trained archaeologist. “Other groups could kill us if they knew what we were doing, so we move in the shadows.”

Many of the antiquities are being sold by middlemen to wealthy collectors in the Gulf and eventually find their way into the global market. The black market antiquities trade is also to drugs and arms smuggling and human trafficking. While much of the world’s focus has been on importance of cutting off the Islamic State’s two principal sources of funding, the sale of Syrian oil and ransoms, the looting and smuggling of antiquities has become a growing source of funding for ISIS. Locations targeted in Syria for looting include historic sites that have been designated as UNESCO world heritage sites including the ruined city of Palmyra, the crusader castle Crac des Chevaliers and medieval buildings in Aleppo. Experts believe this looting, as well as shocking demolition of ancient relics and historic sites by the extremist group including the 2,800-year-old Hittite sculptures in Raqqa, represents the largest threat to artwork and cultural heritage sites since World War II. The looting of Syrian antiquities robs the Syrian people of their cultural property and ultimately their history as the cultural treasures from what is considered to be the birthplace of western civilized are spirited away and sold to the highest bidder, all to fuel and finance more death and destruction.

For more information please see:

BBC News – The Men Who Smuggle the Loot That Funds IS – 16 February 2015

International Business Times Australia – SIS’ Looting Of Precious Relics in Syria ‘Biggest Threat’ To Art since World War II – 12 February 2015

The Smithsonian – Can Antiquities Looting In Syria Be Stopped? – 12 February 2015

United Nations News Centre – Security Council Approves Resolution Targeting Sources of Financing for ISIL – 12 February 2015

The Independent – Call for UK to Take Tougher Action to Save Antiquities from Isis – 11 February 2015

The Wall Street Journal – Culture Brigade: Syrian ‘Monuments Men’ Race To Protect Antiquities as Looting Bankrolls Terror – 10 February 2015

National Geographic – ISIS Cashing In On Looted Antiquities to Fuel Iraq Insurgency – 26 June 2015

february 12, 2015

By Kathryn Maureen Ryan
Impunity Watch, Managing Editor

DAMASCUS, Syria – Attacks carried out by the Syrian Air Force against rebel-held areas east of Damascus have pushed poorly equipped hospitals and doctors beyond capacity to treated the wounded Doctors without Borders said on Wednesday. In the besieged Eastern Ghouta area, “the number of patients treated in the hospitals we support has gone beyond breaking point,” said Dr. Bart Janssens, director of operations the French charity, Medicines Sans frontiers, Doctors without Borders (MSF). “The number of requests for medical supplies has shot up,” he added. MSF reported the regime airstrikes two medical facilities on 5 February forcing both staff and patients to evacuate. “One nurse was killed on his way to work in a hospital on 8 February,” the international NGO reported, adding that hundreds of wounded people have been treated at MSF-supported medical facilities in Eastern Ghouta in recent weeks as regime airstrikes continue.

Medicines Sans Frontiers has highlighted the changes of providing medical assistance to civilians living under horrific conditions in Syria stating that it is sometimes nearly impossible to provide aid; “it is almost a mission impossible in view of the blockades and road blocks. If we are lucky we will get there, but the process will take a long time and tremendous effort. The same goes for donations. We are hardly able to receive any donations because of the siege. Some hospitals in the region have shared with us some of their limited stock, but there is not really enough to go around. We can hardly imagine how we could cope should a similar emergency occur again, the agency said.” Doctors without borders has criticized the international community’s failure to adequately respond to the critical medical situation in Syria, saying “the world has been watching for years. The medical situation, and the general living conditions, are beyond any red lines, and alarm bells have been vainly ringing for a long time.”

Khaled Khoja, leader of the Syrian National Coalition, called on world leaders to take “immediate action” to end regime attacks on civilian populations in the rebel-held suburbs of Damascus. He issued the appeal on Thursday at a press conference held from the group’s base in neighboring Turkey. Reports say that an estimated 150 people have been killed in regime airstrikes within the last 10 days. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a human rights origination based in the United Kingdom, said it has documented at least 183 people, including 29 children, who were killed in regime airstrikes in Ghouta since the beginning of the month.

“The Assad regime’s killing of children and the elderly with rockets, barrel bombs, and toxic gases is as a crime as horrible as ISIS’s slaughtering and burning of people alive,” Khoja said. Khoja argued that Assad’s “barbaric assault” on Douma constitutes a war crime and urged the United Nations to force the Syrian leader to stop indiscriminate bombardment of rebel-held territory.

For more information please see:

ABC News – Syria Rebels Call for Help against Assad As Death Toll Rises – 12 February 2015

Al Arabiya – Syria Bombings Push Hospitals ‘Beyond Breaking Point’: MSF – 11 February 2015

Reuters UK – Syrian Air Attacks Kill Nearly 200 in Damascus Suburbs – Monitor – 11 February 2015

Medicines Sans Frontiers – Syria: Hospitals Struggle to Cope with Shelling In Besieged Areas – 10 February 2015

The civilians’ situation was terrible. Our appeals to save the area were not heard, and we suffered from a severe food shortage.

Hameh, an area in the countryside of Damascus), has witnessed some of the most vicious battles between the Syrian government and rebel forces aligned with the Free Syrian Army (FSA). For the last three years, the town has had to survive with very little food or fuel, as all surrounding roads were closed. Hama has had a fluctuating two-year-old truce that has broken down repeatedly.

Saber, 25, is a law student and resident of Hameh. He told Syria Deeply about the truce and the area’s fragile state of affairs.

Syria Deeply: How did the regime and the rebels come to the decision to call for a truce?

Saber: After the intense clashes between the Syrian army and the FSA, the regime suggested the truce in our area to ease the pressure on its forces on other fronts in the country. The rebels needed to make a deal because of the daily shelling and the constant lack of electricity, food and medicine.

Syria Deeply: What were the terms of the truce?

Saber: A committee was formed consisting of the sheikhs and elders of Hameh and surrounding areas. It was called the Reconciliation Committee, and it was responsible for suggesting the temporary truce to bring food and medicine into the town.

The FSA and the regime both proposed their own terms and conditions for the truce, but they were unsuccessful at first. But the pressure for a truce increased due to the many displaced people who came to Hameh from different areas of the Damascus countryside. These people numbered in the hundreds of thousands, and they needed food and drink.

This influenced the cease-fire for a short period of time, but none of the parties adhered to the truce. The living situation kept deteriorating, and the committee couldn’t reach clear terms that both sides would agree on.

Syria Deeply: How would you describe the living conditions for civilians in the area during this period?

Saber: The civilians’ situation was terrible. Our appeals to save the area were not heard, and we suffered from a severe food shortage. A few days after the truce’s failure, it was announced that all roads to the city were to be closed; some of these roads are still closed now. Then all kinds of food and in particular bread was prevented from entering the area, and the bakery stopped producing as a result of a lack of supplies. Shops and markets became totally empty, it was truly suffocating. Serious diseases and injuries among children and teenagers such as intestinal infections, hepatitis and malnutrition increased.

Syria Deeply: How did things evolve during this siege, and what was the role of the Reconciliation Committee?

Saber: Things evolved in a negative and unsatisfying manner. We demanded that sick people be let out of the area, and that food and medical supplies be allowed to be brought in.

The Reconciliation Committee held another meeting because the health and livelihood situation had gotten so bad. A basic agreement was made and some roads to the town were opened. The Red Crescent brought food to the displaced people in town, and the siege was partially cleared as they brought food and medical materials, but fuel was not allowed, and many roads were still closed. The truce lasted for almost five months, but things were not stable, markets were not reopened, and the shortage of items was not filled.

After five months, the area was surprised with heavy missile shelling for five straight hours – almost three missiles every five minutes. This shelling disabled all the facilities that had started to function again. The result was the death of six women and great destruction of buildings. Then there was another, longer, siege, and as a result people fled to other areas.

Some mediators from Damascus got involved, and they issued a new truce with sufficient terms for both sides, and food was brought into the area with the cooperation of the Red Crescent again. But until now the deal was not made to open the roads completely, and it’s not enough.

Syria Deeply: How are people of the area living now during the truce?

Saber: People appreciate the truce as a way of escaping death, because they’ve suffered from homelessness and damage. But fuel and building materials are still not allowed in, and the electricity is shut down for 20 hours a day, in addition to the damage to the electricity wires due to the shelling, which remain unfixed.

Syria Deeply: How is the situation of other facilities like schools, hospitals and markets?

Saber: Schools are in a miserable situation due to the lack of teaching staff, so some educated young people volunteered to work in schools without any salaries. There’s also a big shortage of schoolbooks.

As for hospitals, there aren’t any in the area. We completely depend on medical charity, and it’s a very primary clinic not equipped to host surgery. It’s also poor in medicine and lacks specialist doctors.

As for shops and markets, they’re closed and empty almost all the time.

We need a radical solution. It’s very important to open the roads in and out of this place: I think this alone could ease the crisis.