Report Methodology
The Syrian Network for Human Rights is human rights organization founded in June 2011, and it is a neutral independent non-governmental, non-profit organization. We aim to document the human rights violations occurring in Syria, by periodically submitting research and reports, with the highest levels of professionalism and objectivity, in order to expose those responsible, as a first step to hold them accountable and to ensure victims’ rights.
It should be noted that the UN depends on SNHR as the main source for its statistics in analysing the victims from the conflict, as well as several other Arabian and global news agencies along with other international human rights organizations.
SNHR count on all its reports, researches and investigations by its members inside and outside of Syria through investigations done by visiting and meeting with survivors or eyewitnesses. All the incidents mentioned in this report also exist in the form of extended reports and studies available and published in Arabic and English on SNHR website.
The international humanitarian law and international customary law along with the international human rights law are the laws acted by and they are obligatory for all conflict parties.
SNHR assures that all of the facts and statistics in this study are just the beginning of the grave violations that have happened and are still happening in Syria from March 2011 until March 2015.
Second: Influential Parties:
a) Government forces:
Government forces include: All the fighters from the Syrian army, intelligence, security and local militias such as the National defence army and others joined by the foreign Shiites militias fighting in Syria.
First: Violations in the treatment of civilians and insurgents hors de combat treatment:
a) Massacres and other illegal ways of killing:
From the beginning of the peaceful demonstrations in Syria during March 2011 until March 10, 2015, SNHR has documented the death of 176,678 civilians of which include 18,242 children, and 18,457 women by the hands of the government including 11,427 deaths from torture.
The percentage of women and children killed to the overall number of victims reached 19%. Such a high number of deaths suggests that the government forces have been targeting civilians by random shelling and execution.