The Killing of 1041 Civilians in April 2016, 718 amongst which were killed by government forces 2016
SNHR declared the report of the victims of April, which documented the death of 1041 civilians.
The report noted that one day after the declaration of the Supreme Commission for negotiations to postpone its participation in the Geneva negotiations on 19 April, government forces and Russian troops resumed bombardment of areas beyond the control of the Syrian regime to return the pace of killings to what it was before the cessation of hostilities agreement.
The report refers to the existence of difficulties facing the SNHR Group in documenting the victims from the opposition armed factions as a large number of people are killed on fighting fronts and not inside the cities where we cannot obtain details such as names and pictures; in addition to the silence of the armed opposition forces in some cases for security reasons; therefore, what is recorded is much less than the real case.
It also confirmed that it is almost impossible to access information on victims from the governmental forces or ISIL, due to the high rate of errors in documenting these types of victims because of the absence of the methodology in documenting such kind. SNHR’s point of view notes that the intervention of statistics issued by some of this type of victims in the check box has no real data.
Accordingly, the report only refers to the civilian victims who are killed by all parties, and the comparisons across them.
The report introduced the statistical forms of the victims of April 2016, where the governmental forces and its supporting militias of killing 718 civilians, including 61 children at the rate of two per day, and 43 women, and 26 people were killed as a result of torture.
The report pointed out that 68 civilians including 21 children and 11 women were killed due to alleged Russian shelling.
On the other hand, the report documented 12 civilians killed, including a child, by Kurdish Self Management Forces.
The report noted that the number of the victims who were killed at the hands of Islamic organizations reached 73 civilians; ISIL killed 69 civilians, including 16 children, 11 women and one person due to the torture. Al Nusra killed 4 civilians including one person due to torture.
The report provided statistical data of the victims who were killed at the hands of the opposition armed factions, reached 120 civilians, including 39 children and 23 women, and one person because of the torture.
The report noted that the International Coalition Forces killed 14 civilians, including two children and a woman by the forces of the international coalition.
The report included the killing of 36 civilians, including 7 children and two women, who were killed either drowned in boats of immigration or in bombing incidents. SNHR could not make sure of the identity of the perpetrators, or by armed groups that are unknown to the Syrian network of human rights.
The report emphasized that the governmental forces violated the provisions of International Human Rights Law which protects the right to live. In addition to this, there are dozens of cases of war crimes. The evidences and hundreds of eyewitnesses indicate that more than 90% of wide attacks were directed against individuals and civilians.
Also, the extremist groups committed several killings outside the scope of the law, which considered as war crimes.
It was also stated in the report that some opposition armed factions, in addition to Kurdish Democratic Union Party committed crimes outside the scope of the law.
The report asked the Security Council and the International Institutions to assume their responsibilities toward what happened of killings, clicking on the Syrian government to stop the bombardment operations deliberately and indiscriminate aerial bombardments against civilians.
The report also detains the allies of the Syrian government – Russia, Iran, and China – upon the material responsibility for what is happening in Syria.