Jan. 30th, 2018
Welcome to Syria Deeply’s weekly summary of our coverage of the crisis in Syria.
Sochi talks: The Moscow-sponsored “Congress of the Syrian National Dialogue” began in the Russian Black Sea resort city of Sochi on Monday. These are the first Syria negotiations to be held in Russia, though Moscow has previously led the trilateral talks in Astana.
U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura is attending the talks, where he is expected to lead a new constitutional commission that will be set up at the two-day Sochi talks, according to Reuters.
Last week, a Turkish official told Hürriyet Daily News that around 1,600 participants were expected to take part in negotiations, but a number of delegations have since said they would boycott the Sochi talks.
The Syrian Negotiation Commission – the opposition’s main negotiating bloc – said on Friday that it would not be attending the Sochi congress, AFP reported. Many other Syrian opposition groups have said they will boycott the congress. However, members of the Moscow platform, “a dissident faction of the opposition,” said it will attend, according to Al Jazeera.
Kurdish authorities have also said that they will boycott Sochi talks because of a continued Turkish assault on Afrin, according to Middle East Eye.
According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, “The fact that some representatives of the processes currently taking place in Syria are not participating is unlikely to stop this congress from going ahead, and is unlikely to seriously undermine the importance of the congress,” he said on a conference call with reporters on Monday.
No cease-fire in Eastern Ghouta: After Syrian opposition reports of a cease-fire agreement in the Eastern Ghouta on Friday, fighting continued between pro-government and rebel forces over the weekend in the Damascus suburbs.
On Friday, a rebel official said that during recent U.N.-sponsored peace talks in Vienna, Russia said it would put pressure on the Syrian government to enforce a cease-fire in the area, Reuters reported. Damascus never acknowledged the cease-fire.
At least 23 aerial raids and 40 missiles targeted the city of Harasta and its outskirts and dozens of artillery and aerial raids targeted the city of Arbin on Monday, killing 34 civilians, including at least one child and one woman, in Eastern Ghouta, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. SOHR said on Sunday that government bombardment in the area killed eight people between then and Saturday.
Operation Olive Branch: Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan made repeated threats to expand Turkey’s ongoing operation against the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG)-controlled city of Afrin to other Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Syria.
On Friday, Erdogan said operations could extend eastward all the way to the Iraqi border, where the United States – Turkey’s NATO ally – has troops deployed. On Saturday, Turkey’s foreign minister called on the U.S. to withdraw its forces from Manbij ahead of a potential Turkish attack, but the commander of the U.S. Central Command, General Joseph Votel, told CNN on Sunday that withdrawing from Manbij was “not something we are looking into.”
Erdogan later said that “step by step, we will clean our entire border,” in a speech following one of the first significant gains Turkish troops and allied rebels made since Operation Olive Branch began nine days ago. On Sunday, they seized Mount Barsaya, which is located near the Kurdish town of Afrin and overlooks the town of Kilis on the Turkish side of the border and Azaz on the Syrian side.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that Turkish airstrikes between Sunday and Monday killed 13 people, including five children and three women, and injured another five, all from the same family in the village of Kobla in northeastern Afrin city.
On Friday, Turkish airstrikes damaged roughly 60 percent of the ancient Ain Dara neo-hittite temple, built by the Arameans in the first millennium B.C., in Afrin, according to the BBC. “The Turkish regime’s destruction of the Ain Dara Temple was a barbaric act, and a completion of the plan led by this regime to destroy the Syrian cultural heritage,” Mahmoud Hammoud, Syria’s director general for antiquities and museums, said, according to state-run news agency SANA.
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Cultural Custom in Nepal Leaves Woman Dead
By: Katherine Hewitt
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia
KATHMANDU, Nepal – On January 8, 2018, Ms. Gauri Bayak, age 21 of Nepal, was found dead inside a smoke-filled hut by her sister-in-law. She lived in a village in Achham, a western district of Nepal. She had been banished to sleep in a shed as a result of menstruation.
It is custom in Nepal to force women who are menstruating to sleep outside the house. The community sees menstruating women as impure, contaminating the home, and angering the gods. They are barred from touching food, men, cattle, and religious icons. Thus, they are excluded from the house and forced to sleep outdoors in small sheds or huts. This practice is known as chhaupadi. It is believed that not following this practice will lead to bad fortune such as death or sickness of family members or livestock.
These huts are often poorly insulated and unheated. During the winter temperatures can drop below freezing in Nepal, thus the necessity to build the fire that ultimately lead to Bayak’s death. Additionally, there have been reports of wild animal attacks on the women sleeping in these menstruation huts. Married women typically spend only a few days from home while unmarried women will remain away from home for a week.
The practice was officially banned in Nepal in 2005, but many remote villages still practice this ritual. In 2017, the Nepali government passed a second legislation that criminalized chhaupadi. As a result anyone caught to have forced a women to go through with chhaupadi will face three months in jail and a 3,000 rupee fine.
Traditions have been slow to change as chhaupadi is a deeply rooted religious and culture practice in Nepal. Aid workers have found success with reducing the number of days menstruating women spend secluded outside as well as with promoting the use of secluded rooms inside the home.
The district’s Women’s Rights official said that women’s families should ‘take responsibility and stop this practice’ to protect women’s rights.
For more information, please see:
Times of India – Nepali woman suffocates in ‘menstruation hut’ – 10 January 2018
Colombia swarmed with Venezuelan refugees
By: Emily Green
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America
CUCUTA, Colombia – Colombia reports that 550,000 Venezuelans have entered the country. Frustrated citizens in border towns protest and demand that the refugees be removed.
On Monday, January 22, a protest in Cucuta between Colombians turned into a shoving match. The group was protesting the approximately 615 Venezuelans living in their area. They referred to the refugee’s shelters as “Hotel Caracas” and demanded that they be removed.
The Mayor, Cesar Omar Rojas, tried to reason with the crowd and asked for two days to implement a “progressive dislocation” for Venezuelans without the proper paperwork. He stated, “Whoever is undocumented has to leave the country. Whoever is here legally, with a passport, we will all look for a way for them to be transferred to another part of the country.”
Migration officials report that most of the Venezuelans in the country are there illegally. The government is under extreme pressure to care for this large number of migrants, and the number is only growing. One million Venezuelans have registered for a migration card which allows them to cross the border to purchase food, shelter, and medical care that they cannot get at home. In 2017, an average of 30,000 people used the card each day to find scarce goods.
Still, Colombia has given 126,000 refugees legal permission to stay. This includes the group of 69,000 who took advantage of humanitarian visas in July. Local Colombians say they are not against all Venezuelans, just the ones that come to the country to do harm. The border between Colombia and Venezuela has had troubles with smuggling and tension due to the price differentials.
Colombia’s finance minister, Mauricio Cardenas, confirmed that he would make an “urgent call” for aid at the upcoming World Economic Forum in Davos. Also, the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said the UN will send more aid to Colombia to help with the increasing number of refugees. Migration flows out of Venezuela are reaching historic proportions as thousands of people cross the western border each day. Colombia has prepared for these waves with plans for refugee camps similar to those that house Syrian refugees in Turkey and Lebanon.
Cardenas remarked, “Colombia has adopted a policy of open arms to these migration flows to show solidarity. We have offered urgent medical attention and school places to all Venezuelans. This all comes at a cost, and Colombia has assumed that cost.”
For more information, please see:
UNTV – Uproar over uptick of Venezuelans at Colombian border – 23 January 2018
BBC News – Colombia says 550,000 Venezuelans have fled to the country – 19 January 2018
Curacao Chronicle – Exact Numbers Venezuelan Refugees According to the UNHCR – 21 December 2017
Syrian Rebel Forces Reject Peace Talks In Russia
Matthew Sneed
Impunity Watch Reporter, The Middle East
DAMASCUS, Syria – On December 25, Syrian rebel forces publicly announced that they would not attend the peace talks in scheduled in Sochi in January. The approximately 40 rebel groups, including military factions who had previously participated in talks in Geneva, said Russia failed to put pressure on the Syrian government to end the conflict.
According to the rebels, Russia asked the group to cease calling for the resignation of Assad. The rebels released a statement in which they said “Russia is an aggressor country that has committed war crimes against Syrians. It stood with the regime militarily and defended it politically and over seven years preventing UN condemnation of [Syrian President Bashar] Assad’s regime.”
While Russia claims that its attacks are directed towards militants, both the rebels and residents claim that airstrikes have killed hundreds of civilians. In addition, they bombed civilian areas away from the front-lines of battle.
The rebels further stated that, “Russia has not contributed one step to easing the suffering of Syrians and has not pressured the regime that it claims is a guarantor by moving in any real path towards a solution.”
The Syrian national dialogue congress, which is scheduled for January 29 and 30, is also backed by Iran and Turkey. While Russia and Iran support the government of Syria, Turkey supports the opposition. Syrian officials said they would attend the talks and that they are open to the agenda of new elections and possibly amending the constitution. The main point of contention between the two sides centers around the fate of Assad. The opposition continues to call for his removal from power, a position that the government says it will not consider.
The rebels continue to express faith in the UN-led Geneva process, and have called on the global community to end the violence in the region. The Geneva talks began in 2014 but have made little progress since.
Another hurdle for the talks in Sochi is determining who else should be invited to the conversation. Turkey insisted that the Kurdish group know as the PYD should not be invited to participate. The PYD controls about 25% of Syrian territory and wants independent control from the other factions. While Kurdish officials will attend, Russia stated that it did not invite members of the PYD.
While multiple cease-fire agreements in regions across Syria brokered by Russia, Iran, and Turkey have reduced the violence, the government continues to fight in regions close to the capital. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights have determined that at least 20 people have been killed in airstrikes in southern Idlib since December 25.
For more information please see:
Boston Globe – Syria rebels, opposition reject Russia-proposed talks – 26, Dec. 2017
Reuters – Syrian rebel groups reject Russian-sponsored Sochi Conference – 25, Dec. 2017
The Guardian – Rebel group rejects talks on Syrian conflict hosted by Russia – 25, Dec. 2017