9th February, 2016
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PICTURE: www.freeimages.com (image posed by model) |
Thousands of detainees have been killed while in the custody of government and rebel groups in Syria over the past four-and-a-half years in what a UN-commissioned group says amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Based on 621 interviews as well as other documentary materials and relating to the period between 10th March, 2011, and 30th November last year, the report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria found evidence that detainees held by the Syrian Government were beaten to death, died as a result of injuries due to torture, or perished due to "inhuman living conditions".
It said rebel groups had ill-treated and summarily executed captured soldiers, some of whom had also died while being held hostage while other militant groups, such as Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State, had also conducted mass executions and carried out torture.
Paulo Pinheiro, chair of the commission which was established by the Human Rights Council in 2011, said nearly every surviving detainee had emerged from custody suffering "unimaginable abuses".
Among the horrors in the report are accounts of detainees in government detention being brutally bashed and tortured, resulting in their deaths, while others died due to severe over-crowding, a lack of food, unclean drinking water or lack of medical care.
While the majority of those who died in government controlled detention were men, women and children as young as seven-years-old have also reportedly been killed. One report tells of an elderly detainee, who later died, who had his body pierced with a heated metal object and eyes burned with cigarettes. Detainees have also been subjected to rape and other forms of sexual violence as well as threats against other family members.
Detainees held by anti-government armed groups and allied armed groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra, have also died as a result of torture and ill-treatment and people held hostage for prisoner exchanges, including children, have been murdered when exchanges didn’t take place. Executions, including mass killings, have taken place with victims beheaded, shot or even pushed off rooves.
As well as calling on the Syrian Government and other anti-government armed groups take immediate action to comply with human rights and international law, the commission has called on the UN Security Council to refer the matter to the International Criminal Court and introduce targeted sanctions.
– DAVID ADAMS
