Syria Deeply Weekly Update: Unprecedented Moves In War-Torn Syria

WEEKLY UPDATE
August 20, 2016
Dear Readers,Welcome to the weekly Syria Deeply newsletter. We’ve rounded up the most important stories and developments about Syria and the Syrians in order to bring you valuable news and analysis. But first, here is a brief overview of what happened this week:The week saw several firsts in the now five-year-long Syrian conflict, which, as unbelievable as it may seem, have further complicated the war and worsened the situation on the ground.For the first time since the Syrian conflict began in 2011, Syrian government warplanes bombed Kurdish-controlled areas in the northern Hasaka province. At least 13 people were killed in airstrikes on positions in northeast and northwest Hasaka.The Syrian government’s allies also made unprecedented moves this week. On Tuesday, Russia used an Iranian air base for the first time to strike targets in Syria, while a top Chinese official visited Damascus and announced that it was open to intensifying its military partnerships in Syria with both Russia and Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s government.As shifts took place on the diplomatic front, clashes on the ground continued. Fighting has been steadily increasing in the opposition-held province of Idlib as the battle for Aleppo, just 56 kilometers (35 miles) away, intensifies. Several opposition factions originating from Idlib launched an offensive on government forces last week to break a government siege on eastern neighborhoods in Aleppo, and forces allied with the Syrian government have been retaliating.According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, dozens of airstrikes have hit Idlib since last weekend: Airstrikes on Wednesday killed at least 25 people, at least five children died from aerial bombardments on Tuesday, and on Friday at least six people, including at least one child, were killed in airstrikes in the southern Idlib neighborhood of Khan Shekhon. On Monday, a suicide bombing targeted a bus carrying opposition fighters, killing 25 people and injuring at least 25 others.Meanwhile in Aleppo, opposition forces attacked an army base and residential district in the northwestern part of Aleppo city after detonating car bombs in the area. Rebel groups then attacked government positions in the southwest of the city, in a cement factory near a route that opens up into eastern Aleppo, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.The Battle for Aleppo is ongoing, with some 2 million people inside the divided city at risk of siege and living under intense airstrikes and shelling.

Weekly Highlights:

Educational Reform for Syrians Must Not Ignore the Country’s Children

Humanitarian solutions to the education crisis facing Syrian children are largely ignoring those most in need, argues Middle East writer and researcher James Denselow. Children inside Syria are being overlooked.
Syrian refugee children sit on the ground as they listen to their teacher inside a tent, the home of a refugee family that has been turned into a makeshift school, at a Syrian refugee camp in the eastern town of Kab Elias, Lebanon. AP/Bilal Hussein, File

My Days in Damascus Entry 4: Getting Permission

Farah, a young woman living in Syria’s capital city, writes about the obstacles and discrimination she faced as a young, single woman trying to rent a studio apartment in Damascus.
A stray cat in an alleyway in the center of the Syrian capital, Damascus. Farah

Diabetes Patients Battle for Insulin in Syria

In the second installment of our series on chronic illnesses in Syria, we explore the diabetes crisis across the war-torn country and the constant struggle to obtain the insulin needed to treat the disease.
Rada Hallabi, 4, who is sick with diabetes, lies on a blanket in a refugee camp on the border with Turkey, near Azaz village, Syria, Sunday, Sept. 30, 2012. AP/ Manu Brabo

Additional Reading:

For new reporting and analysis every weekday, visit www.newsdeeply.com/syria.
You can reach our team with any comments or suggestions at info@newsdeeply.org.

Top image: A screenshot from a video shows five-year-old  Omran Daqneesh, who was pulled from the rubble of a bombed building, bloodied and in shock, after an airstrike in Aleppo. Aleppo Media Center

Syria Justice and Accountability Centre: The SJAC Weekly Update: Monitoring is Needed for All Detention Facilities in Syria
Inside Saydnaya: Syria’s Torture Prison, Video of Amnesty International

Monitoring is Needed for All Detention Facilities in Syria
Prisons are by their very nature isolated and concealed spaces where abuses can go unnoticed, and in countries with ongoing conflict, prisons are often rife with human rights violations. Already, a former photographer with the Syrian military police showed the world evidence of widespread torture through what is now known as the Caesar files. And over the past several months, prisoners throughout Syria have rioted against the government’s practice of summary executions, whereby military field courts, authorized to try both civilians and military personnel, sentence detainees to execution without due process. In Hama and Aleppo, prisoners rioted when death sentences issued by a field court were scheduled to be carried out against fellow inmates. Most recently, on August 3, prisoners in the Sweida civil detention facility rioted due to  mistreatment and the transfer of four detainees to the security branch in Damascus for execution. Although no monitors have been allowed access to any of these detention facilities, Amnesty International created a an interactive 3D model of the Sednaya prison to give outsiders a better understanding of the conditions inside Syrian prisons.

The Geneva Conventions prohibit the inhuman treatment of persons not actively taking part in hostilities, including combatants held in detention. Specifically, the Conventions prohibit murder, cruel or humiliating treatment, torture,and “the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording . . . judicial guarantees.” Syria signed and ratified the Geneva Conventions in 1953, and in 1976, Syria ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which states that “All persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect.” Based on the many reports of abuse and summary executions, the Syrian government is in clear violation of these treaties. The Optional Protocol of the UN Convention against Torture mandates periodic visits of international monitors to detention facilities. Although Syria ratified the Convention (with a reservation on Article 20 that recommends visits to detention centers by the UN Body), it never signed or ratified the Optional Protocol so observers are not mandated by any UN treaty body. However, the UN could pressure the parties to the conflict to accept prison visits as a part of its role as mediator in the ongoing negotiations.
READ MORE

Syrian Network for Human Rights: Russian Forces Surpasses ISIS in Killing Syrian Civilians
State’s Terrorism is more Atrocious than the Terrorism of Extremist Groups
The Russian regime is claiming that Russia intervened in Syria to protect the Syrian people from the terrors of the extreme group ISIS. From our perspective, the Syrian people welcomes anyone who would help get rid of extremist groups with open arms. That, however, should be through practical and actual means and not merely a pretext to justify and mitigate a military interference as we haven’t ever touched on any serious methods to protect the Syrian people from extremist groups whether by Russian forces or by the international coalition forces. All what have been done is a military action that lacks a popular approval firstly, and secondly this military action has failed to protect the Syrian civilians from the savagery of the Syrian regime which is the primary base and justification for the existence of such extremist groups.
Website
Facebook
Google Plus
Twitter
YouTube
Instagram
RSS
Email

Syria Deeply Weekly Update: Toxic Bombs, Air Raids on Hospitals Hit Syria

WEEKLY UPDATE
August 13, 2016
Dear Readers,Welcome to the weekly Syria Deeply newsletter. We’ve rounded up the most important stories and developments about Syria and the Syrians in order to bring you valuable news and analysis. But first, here is a brief overview of what happened this week:Fighting intensified in several areas of Syria, the worst of it taking place in Aleppo. As clashes escalated, there were several reports this week that prohibited weapons had been used in at least two provinces in Syria.The Syrian Civil Defense, a group of volunteer rescue workers, accused Russia of dropping thermite bombs on civilian areas of rebel-held Idlib province over the weekend. If true, using the incendiary weapon in a civilian area would be a violation of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. On Thursday, medical officials in opposition-held Aleppo said barrel bombs believed to be filled with toxic gas fell on the neighborhood of Zubdiya, killing at least four people and injuring at least 55 others.At least three hospitals in Syria were hit in airstrikes this week. Over the weekend four airstrikes targeted a hospital in Idlib, killing at least 10 people. On Friday, airstrikes hit the last remaining hospital for women and children in Kafr Hamra, a town in northern Aleppo. At least two staff members were killed in the air raid. Activists inside rebel-held Aleppo also said that airstrikes also hit the Omar Abdul Aziz Hospital.According to a group of 15 of the last remaining doctors in eastern Aleppo, “Right now, there is an attack on a medical facility every 17 hours. At this rate our medical services in Aleppo could be completely destroyed in a month,” the doctors wrote in a statement addressed to President Barack Obama.Opposition forces broke the siege in eastern Aleppo over the weekend, but the battle for control of both the opposition-held and western, government-held areas continued this week in Syria’s largest city. Various rebel factions fighting in eastern Aleppo also launched an offensive to seize the western site of the city, effectively besieging some 1.5 million people.The U.N. warned that more than 2 million people living in Aleppo could fall under complete siege as fighting escalates in the city. Water has already been cut across the entire city. “Civilians on both sides of the conflict – on both sides of Aleppo – are in danger of being surrounded and affected by shortages and bombings,” Staffan de Mistura, the U.N. special envoy for Syria, said.On Wednesday, Russia announced it would implement daily three-hour cease-fires in Aleppo to allow aid deliveries. All military action, both ground and air, would be stopped for these three-hour periods and Moscow will coordinate with Damascus to “ensure that all interested organizations have the opportunity to deliver their humanitarian assistance to the residents of Aleppo,” Lieutenant-General Sergei Rudskoi, an official with the Russian defense ministry, said.Fighting also continued this week in other areas of northern Syria. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of U.S.-backed Kurdish and Arab fighters, launched its final assault to clear out ISIS militants from Manbij city near the Turkish border. Last week, the SDF announced it had cleared roughly 90 percent of the city.On Friday, Russian airstrikes cut the water supply in the so-called Islamic State group’s de facto capital, Raqqa, BBC News reported. The strikes hit a water pumping station that supplied the city, killing at least 24 civilians, as well as six others whose affiliation could not be identified, according to the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Weekly Highlights:

The Siege Sector: Why Starving Civilians Is Big Business

As 2 million people are at risk of coming under siege in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, researcher Will Todman speaks to Syria Deeply about the war economy that has taken hold in besieged areas across the country.
Anti-Syrian-government activists hold up placards during a sit-in against the ongoing siege imposed on the Syrian town of Madaya in front of the E.U. embassy in Beirut. AP/Hassan Ammar, File

Analysis: How Syrian Men Changed Under Militant Rule

ISIS has been increasing its influence on the local population, creating changes in the fabric of society that could outlive the militant group’s existence, Syrian journalist Jalal Zein al-Deen explains.
An ISIS flag hangs amid the ancient ruins of Palmyra in Syria July 4, 2015, after Islamic State group militants had previously seized the city. Islamic State Group

My Days in Damascus Entry 3: The Post-Revolution Generation

Farah, a young woman living in Syria’s capital city, explores the difficulties of living in Damascus, where most of the people her age have fled, giving way to a younger generation that is far less interested in the future of Syria.
View from a balcony in Damascus, Syria. Farah

Additional Reading

For new reporting and analysis every weekday, visit www.newsdeeply.com/syria.
You can reach our team with any comments or suggestions at info@newsdeeply.org.

Top image: Abu Mohammed al-Joulani, leader of the faction Jabhat al-Nusra, announces the group’s split from al-Qaida. Telegram

Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect: Atrocity Alert: South Sudan, Yemen and Nigeria

Atrocity Alert is a weekly publication by the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect highlighting and updating situations where populations are at risk of, or are enduring, mass atrocity crimes.

South Sudan

On 15 August, the one-year anniversary of the signing of a peace agreement to end South Sudan’s civil war, Human Rights Watch released a report documenting widespread abuses perpetrated by soldiers from the Sudan People’s Liberation Army during five days of fighting with rebel soldiers between 7 and 11 July. The report details widespread rape, noting that the UN has documented more than 200 cases of sexual violence since 7 July, as well as indiscriminate armed attacks on civilian-populated areas. Government forces also targeted populations based upon ethnicity, particularly non-Dinka civilians.

Last Friday, 12 August, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 2304 authorizing the creation of a Regional Protection Force within the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) to “engage any actor that is preparing attacks or engages in attacks” against UN protection of civilians sites, humanitarian actors or civilians. This Regional Protection Force needs to be deployed as soon as possible to bolster the efforts of UNMISS. In keeping with Resolution 2304, any further obstruction of UNMISS’ mandate or continued violations of international humanitarian and human rights law should result in the UN Security Council imposing an arms embargo on South Sudan.

IOM

Ibrahem Qasim

UNICEF/UN026956/Madhok

Yemen

Fighting in Yemen significantly escalated following the 6 August cessation of UN-mediated talks to end the civil war. On 12 August the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Yemen raised alarm at the impact of the intensification of violence, with widespread reports of civilians killed and homes destroyed. On 13 August ten children were killed when airstrikes hit a religious school in Sa’ada and the following day fourteen people were killed when a Médecins Sans Frontières-supported hospital was bombed in Hajjah. The Saudi-led coalition has been implicated in both attacks. Meanwhile, the midterm report of the UN’s Panel of Experts on Yemen, leaked to the media last week, includes evidence of violations of international human rights and humanitarian law by all sides, noting that Houthis have used civilians as human shields to avoid attacks. All parties to the conflict must strictly adhere to international humanitarian and human rights law and take all necessary measures to avoid further civilian casualties. It is essential that all parties to the conflict reestablish peace talks without delay and commit to a long-term political solution to the civil war.

Nigeria

On 14 August Boko Haram published a video showing some of the more than 200 girls kidnapped from a secondary school in Chibok, Borno state, during April 2014. The video has been released during a leadership struggle within the extremist group between Abubakar Shekau, who has led the group since 2010, and Abu Musab al-Barnawi, who was recently appointed by the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Infighting within the leadership could result in dire consequences for populations as the rival leaders attempt to assert their control over the group. Al-Barnawi has declared his intention to increase Boko Haram’s targeting of Christians, putting these populations at greater risk of atrocities and potentially exacerbating religious tensions across the country. The government must provide protection to all vulnerable communities and renew efforts to secure the release of the Chibok girls, as well as the hundreds of other women and children abducted by Boko Haram.

Sam Olukoya/IRIN

Obinna Anyadike/IRIN

Connect With Us