Five Oppressive States Voted Against the Syrian People and Human Rights
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On March 11, 2024, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic (COI) submitted its 29th report to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC). The report, which covers the period between July 1, 2022, and December 31, 2023, documents the most serious violations of fundamental human rights and international humanitarian law across Syria during that time, drawing upon 528 direct interviews.
We, at the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), have studied the report in detail. Below is a summary of its most noteworthy insights:
The report sheds light on the continued and widespread violations of human rights and international humanitarian law at the hands of the parties to the conflict and controlling forces in Syria. Over 13 million people, the report stresses, are now either internally displaced persons (IDPs) or seeking asylum in other countries, while 90 percent of all Syrian civilians are living under the poverty line. Moreover, it is estimated that 16.7 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance to stay alive, the highest number of people classified as being in need since the start of the conflict.
Moreover, the report notes that the number of Syrians seeking asylum in Europe reached its highest levels in seven years in November 2023, which saw a 30 percent year-on-year increase from November 2022, with that figure continuing to rise. By the end of December, the report reveals, only one-third of Syria’s Humanitarian Response Plan for 2023 was funded. To make matters worse, in January 2024, the World Food Programme (WFP) ended its decade-long assistance programme, even though over half of the Syrian population are living in hunger. The report stresses that “the failure of the Security Council to renew the cross-border aid mechanism in July 2023 raised concerns over the sustainability and effectiveness of the aid response to 4.1 million people” in northern Syria, which is the region worst affected by the catastrophic earthquake of February 6, 2023.