WUNRN
SYRIA - DEATH TOLL TOPS 190,000 - UN
REPORT
AROUND 18,000 WOMEN & OVER
2000 CHILDREN
"It is a real indictment of the age we live in that not only has this
been allowed to continue so long, with no end in sight, but is also now
impacting horrendously on hundreds of thousands of other people across the
border in northern Iraq, and the violence has also spilled over into
Lebanon," said Pillay.
Pillay, in a statement issued a week before leaving office, added: "The
killers, destroyers and torturers in Syria
have been empowered and emboldened by the international paralysis.
"It is essential governments take serious measures to halt the fighting
and deter the crimes, and above all stop fuelling this monumental, and wholly
avoidable, human catastrophe through the provision of arms and other military
supplies."
The report by her Geneva office was based on data from four rebel groups and
the Syrian government. They were cross-checked to eliminate duplicates and
inaccuracies, including non-violent deaths or alleged victims later found to be
alive.
The report said the number of men, women and children
killed in the conflict as of April 30, 2014, totaled at least 191,369. Of them,
some 62,000 - both civilians and combatants - were killed in the past year
alone, Pillay's spokesman Rupert Colville said.
The figure is more than twice the number of deaths documented a year
ago and is probably still an under-estimate, Pillay said.
WOMEN AND CHILDREN
Colville told a news briefing in Geneva that around 5,000 to 6,000
people were being killed on a monthly basis.
Men and boys account for the bulk of the deaths but nearly 18,000
women and more than 2,000 children under the age of nine are also among those
killed, he said.
Assad's government supplied just one set of figures on killings to the United Nations in March 2012, Colville said.
"We consider their information important because it's a little bit of a
different perspective and possibly different groups of people that they focus
on," he said, adding they were "almost exclusively military or
police".
All groups involved in the fighting -- including the government, the army,
police, Islamist militants and other opposition groups -- have committed
killings, Colville said.
The U.N. report said it had excluded from its analysis an additional 51,953
killings that were reported but lacked required information of full name, date
and location of death.
A further "significant" number may not have been reported by any
of the five sources, it added.
The highest number of documented killings were recorded in Rural Damascus
province, Aleppo and Homs.
Pillay repeated her longstanding call on world powers on the U.N. Security Council to refer alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by all sides in Syria's conflict to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
_____________________________________________________________________________________
----- Original Message -----
From: Lois A. Herman
To: WUNRN ListServe
Sent: Friday, February 07, 2014 11:15 AM
Subject: Syria - Little Girls Starving, Hungry, Dying
WUNRN
Syria - Inside & Across Borders, Little Girls Are
Starving, Hungry, Dying
Website Link Includes Video.
One-year-old Rana, who starved to death
When
she was brought to a field hospital in rebel-held Moadamia, one mile north of
Duaa
al Sheikh, a 7-year-old Syrian girl in Moadamia, died due to malnutrition.
DEPRIVAL OF
FOOD, WATER, SHELTER & MEDICAL CARE - A METHOD OF WAR IN SYRIA, AND A CRIME
AGAINST HUMANITY - UN EXPERTS
GENEVA (6 February 2014) – A group of United Nations independent experts* on the human rights to food, health, housing, water and sanitation, and on summary executions and torture, today urged all parties to the Syrian conflict to stop the use of civilian suffering as a method of war.
“As
reports are piling up of indiscriminate shelling of civilians, enforced
disappearances and executions, another horror of the war in Syria is becoming
apparent: the deprivation of basic necessities of life and the denial of
humanitarian relief as a method of war,” they warned.
“Depriving
people of their access to food and water, impeding their access to health
services and wantonly destroying their housing constitute clear violations of
the human rights to food, to water, to sanitation, to housing, to health, and
to freedom from inhumane treatment, protected under international human rights
treaties,” the experts said.
“The
acts being committed amount to crimes against humanity, carried out as a
deliberate and systematic effort to cause civilian suffering,” the rights
experts stressed. “They also constitute war crimes and serious violations of
customary international humanitarian law which binds all parties.”
The
experts underscored that targeting medical units and medical personnel, making
civilians the object of attack, subjecting them to inhumane treatment,
obstructing humanitarian relief, attacking objects crucial for the survival of
civilians, and using starvation as a method of warfare is explicitly banned.
The
UN estimates that 9.3 million people are in urgent need of humanitarian
assistance. Some 6.5 million people live as internally displaced within the
country, having fled their homes and left behind their sources of livelihood.
More than 6 million are in critical need of sustained food assistance.
“Numerous
cases show that government and pro-government forces as well as armed
opposition groups are impeding humanitarian relief to populations facing
extreme deprivation, including children, women, older persons, persons with
disabilities, the chronically sick, and civilians and persons hors combat held
in detention,” the group of experts said.
The
situation is most critical for the quarter of a million people living in
communities under siege, such as Nubul and Al-Zahraa in rural Aleppo, Eastern
Ghouta, Darayya and Moadamiyah in rural Damascus, the Old City in Homs; and the
Yarmouk Camp in Damascus.
The
UN estimates that over 100,000 people trapped in and around Yarmouk Camp are
now in severe risk of starvation. From other besieged areas, reports are
emerging of chronic child malnutrition and health problems caused by a lack of
access to vital nutrients and safe drinking water.
“Apart
from obstructing humanitarian access through sieges and tight check-points,
attacks have been carried out to destroy harvests, kill livestock, and cut off
water supplies, with the apparent aim of starving out the targeted
populations,” the experts noted. “At the same time, entire neighborhoods and
residences are being razed, aggravating the dire housing situation, causing
further displacement.”
“We
also express alarm at consistent reports of deliberate destruction of hospitals
and medical units, and of arrests, ill-treatment, torture and killings of
doctors, nurses, medical volunteers and ambulance drivers.”
“These
acts are morally abhorrent, and present a major obstacle to building peace,”
they stated. “We are outraged by the extreme human suffering caused by the
apparent blatant disregard for human rights and humanitarian law.”
“We
urge all parties to the conflict to ensure immediate humanitarian relief to the
large parts of the population experiencing extreme deprivation. The use of
civilian suffering as a method of war must stop,” the group of experts
concluded.
(*) The experts: The Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter; the
Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest
attainable standard of physical and mental health, Anand
Grover; the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component
of the right to an adequate standard of living, and on the right to
non-discrimination in this context, Raquel Rolnik; the Special Rapporteur on
extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Christof
Heyns; the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Juan E. Méndez; and the Special
Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation,
Catarina de Albuquerque.
The
United Nations human rights experts are part of what it is
known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council.
Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN
Human Rights, is the general name of the independent fact-finding and
monitoring mechanisms of the Human Rights Council that address either specific
country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world.
They
are charged by the Human Rights Council to monitor, report and advise on human
rights issues. Currently, there are 37 thematic mandates and 14 mandates
related to countries and territories, with 72 mandate holders. In March 2014,
three new mandates will be added. Special Procedures experts work on a
voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their
work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in
their individual capacity.
Food: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Food/Pages/FoodIndex.aspx
Health: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Health/Pages/SRRightHealthIndex.aspx
Housing: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Housing/Pages/HousingIndex.aspx
Torture: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Torture/SRTorture/Pages/SRTortureIndex.aspx
Water & sanitation: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/WaterAndSanitation/SRWater/Pages/SRWaterIndex.aspx
For
further information and media inquiries, please contact Ulrik
Halsteen (+41 22 917 9323 / srfood@ohchr.org).