Syria Watch

UNHCR Urges Support for Syrian Refugees in Jordan

By Kathryn Maureen Ryan
Impunity Watch, Managing Editor

AMMAN, Jordan – The United Nation’s High Commissioner for Refugees has called on the International Community to help alleviate the “desperate living conditions” of Syrian refugees now living away from Jordan’s main camps. According to a recent United Nations study, one in six refugees living outside of Jordan’s main camps is living in extreme poverty. UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres warned large numbers of Syrian refugees continuing to slide into abject poverty at an alarming rate, due to the magnitude of the crisis in Syria and insufficient support from the international community.

Syrian refugees rest in an emergency shelter after their tents collapsed when heavy snows lashed Za’atari refugee camp in northern Jordan. Hundreds of refugee families were effected by the extreme winter storm. (Photo courtesy of the UNHCR)

Commissioner Guterres made a statement on the crisis during the launch of the new UNHCR study, living in the Shadows, which reveals evidence of a deepening humanitarian crisis. The Commissioner made a two-day visit to Jordan, where met with refugees profiled in the UN study in Amman and others at the Za’atari refugee camp. “I am here to express my solidarity with Syrian refugees, as the impact of snowstorm Huda is still tangible and posing an even greater strain on their already dire living conditions,” he said.

Jordan has a registered Syrian refugee population of 620,000. 84 percent of its refugee population live outside of refugee camps.  “This represents a dramatic pressure in the economy and the society of the country not to mention the terrible security impact of the Syria crisis in itself,” Commissioner Guterres said. “The generosity of the Jordanian people and the Government needs to be matched by massive support from the international community – support for the refugees themselves and for the local populations hosting them, but also structural and budgetary support to the Jordanian Government for education, health, water and sanitation and electricity to enable it to cope with this enormous challenge.”

Commissioner Guterres emphasized that the Syrian Civil war and the refugee crisis it has created can be mitigated if the international community steps up efforts to alleviate the suffering of the refugee populations. He praised the efforts of the Jordanian authorities, UNHCR and its partners to address the urgent needs of refugees during the recent heavy snowstorm which threatened the health and safety of refugees.

Extreme winter weather in the region threatened the lives and safety of refugees living in the Za’atari refugee camp. The Za’atari refugee camp is the largest refugee camp in Jordan with a population of nearly 85,000 Syrians. In the camp dozens of families were forced to abandon their family’s tents and camped in emergency shelters after their tents collapsed under the weight of snow.

Fatima, a 20 year old Syrian refugee, and her husband Mohammed were trying to protect their three small children from the cold when the roof of their tent collapsed. “We had a small stove burning in the tent to keep warm, and it fell onto my son and burned his back,” she told visitors from UNHCR to the shelter where she and her children are living with seven other families.

For more information please see:

BBC News – Syria Refugees: UN Warns Of Extreme Poverty in Jordan – 14 January 2015

The UNHCR – UNHCR Study Shows Rapid Deterioration in Living Conditions Of Syrian Refugees in Jordan – 14 January 2015

The UNHCR – Winter Storms Bring More Hardship to Refugees in Jordan’s Za’atari Camp – 9 January 2015

U.S News and World Report – The Challenge of the Syrian Refugee Response – 8 January 2015

Israel Drone Strike Kills Iranian General in Syria

By Kathryn Maureen Ryan
Impunity Watch, Managing Editor

DAMASCUS, Syria – The Iranian government confirmed Monday that one of its generals was killed in an Israeli airstrike that also killed several Hezbollah fighters in southern Syria on Sunday. The death of the Iranian general, Mohammad Ali Allahdadi, offers evidence of Iran’s possible deep military involvement in the Syrian Civil War. The airstrike itself however, seems to show a strong departure from the tactical agreement in several  foreign players — Israel, Iran, Hezbollah, Turkey, the United States, and its Persian Gulf Arab allies — have increasingly intervened openly in the Syrian Civil War while avoiding direct conflicts with one another. The Israeli news media reported that Israeli officials believed Hezbollah was planning an attack on Israelis from the area, near the Golan Heights region, the reports cited anonymous intelligence sources. “Syria has become an open field,” said Kamel Wazne, a Lebanese political studying Hezbollah and Iran. “Everything can happen at any minute.”

Hezbollah members and supporters carry the coffin of Jihad Moughniyah during his funeral in Beirut’s suburbs on January 19, 2015. (Photo courtesy of Reuters UK)

Sunday’s drone strike hit a convoy carrying Jihad Moughniyah and Commander Mohamad Issa, known as Abu Issa, in the Syrian province of Quneitra, near the Golan Heights region, which is occupied by Israel. The strike killed six Hezbollah members in all, Hezbollah said in a statement. Hezbollah received strong backing from Iran. The group’s last major conflict with Israel occurred in 2006. Hezbollah is a major ally of the region of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

General Allahdadi’s death was announced on the Revolutionary Guards’ website and by news media affiliated with both Hezbollah and the Iranian government. The announcement said the general had been advising the Syrian government on how to fight terrorism, which is how the Syrian Regime characterizes the opposing sides of the civil war which began four years ago when the regime first turned its guns on peaceful protesters. It remains unclear whether the Israeli military knowingly targeted Allahdadi or other individuals in the two vehicles that were fired upon on Sunday. The United Nations force patrolling the region said the vehicles were hit by fire from Israeli drones, not helicopters as Hezbollah and Iran had reported.

United Nations peacekeepers stationed in the Golan Heights along Syria’s border with Israeli reportedly saw drones flying across the border from the Israeli side before and after an airstrike that killed top several Hezbollah figures was carried out, the United Nations said on Monday. Sky News Arabic reported that the anti-rocket batteries used by the Israeli Defense Force for the Iron Dome System had been maneuvered in case of further escalation on the border with Syria and Lebanon.

For more information please see:

BBC News – Iran General Died In ‘Israeli Strike’ In Syrian Golan – 19 January 2015

Reuters UK – U.N. Saw Drones Over Syria Before Israel Strike In Breach Of Truce – 19 January 2015

Jerusalem Post – Report: Iron Dome Deployed To Northern Israel After Alleged Syria Strike – 19 January 2015

The New York Times – Iran Confirms Israeli Airstrike In Southern Syria – 19 January 2015

 

Kurdish Forces Battle Forces Loyal to the Assad Regime

By Kathryn Maureen Ryan
Impunity Watch, Managing Editor

DAMASCUS, Syria – Syrian Kurds reportedly clashed with forces loyal to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Saturday breaking a tactical agreement between the two sides, both facing an ongoing struggle to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). The fighting reportedly broke out in the Syrian City of Hassakeh, the UK based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Casualties were reported on both sides.  The clashes broke out Saturday after members of a Kurdish militia detained 10 Syrian soldiers and pro-government gunmen after they were deployed in areas controlled by Kurds. “There has been some serious fighting today. The PYD arrested 10 soldiers and Baath party gunmen,” Observatory head Rami Abdulrahman told the press. “There is now fighting in many areas of Hassakeh.”

Assad visits troops loyal to his regime. The YPG and the government had divided Hassakeh into zones in a power sharing agreement for the region. (Photo courtesy of Al Arabiya)

The Syrian Military reportedly shelled three areas in the Kurdish region of the country on the edges of the city of Hassakeh. Nawaf Khalil, A spokesperson Kurdish Democratic Union Party spokesman said the fighting was concentrated in several areas in Hassakeh, a predominantly Kurdish city. Fighting between the two sides has been reportedly rare since the Syrian military withdrew from the area in 2012 to focus its fighting elsewise in the country. Kurdish forces have been openly deployed in the area, defending the region from insurgents, since the Syrian regime withdrew from the region. However, violence broke out when Syrian army’s soldier in the region as well as militiamen loyal to the regime took control of buildings in an area that both sides had agreed would stay demilitarized, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported.

While there were smaller scale clashes reported last May between the Assad regime forces and Kurdish Forces in the city of Hassakeh those clashes were relatively contained. During Syria’s three year civil war, Kurds have proclaimed control in parts of the northeast where Kurdish forces have defended the nation’s Kurdish minority. Approximately 200,000 people have been killed since the Syrian conflict began in March 2011, according to the United Nations.

The City of Hassakeh has seen heavy violence from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) over the past several months. Last Friday, Amnesty International reported that fighters loyal to ISIS targeted and killed Arab families living and working in the farming village of al-Tleiliye in Kurdish-controlled Hassakeh province. ISIS reportedly killed 15 people included seven children. “The attacks appear aimed at terrorizing and forcibly displacing the community living in the area,” Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa program director, said in a statement. The organization “fears these civilians were killed as retribution for their perceived support of the YPG, either directly or indirectly through their Yezidi Kurdish landowners, or because they were mistaken for Yezidi Kurds.”

For more information please see:

Al Arabiya – Kurds Open Front against Assad’s Forces: Monitor – 17 January 2015

Reuters UK – Kurds Battle Assad’s Forces in Syria, Opening New Front in Civil War – 17 January 2015

The Wall Street Journal – Kurdish Fighters Clash with Syrian Forces – 17 January 2015

Syria Deeply – Murder Of Arab Families in Hassakeh Points to Rising Tensions between Islamists and Kurds – 11 January 2015