With the Downfall of the Assad Regime, SNHR Calls for Holding Those Responsible for the Use of Chemical Weapons, Foremost Among Them Bashar Assad, And Praises the Transitional Government’s Cooperation With the OPCW
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The Hague – Syrian Network for Human Rights:
This week marks the eighth anniversary of the Assad regime’s chemical weapons attack on Khan Sheikhoun city on April 4, 2017, and the seventh anniversary of the regime’s chemical weapons attack on Douma city on April 7, 2018. In relation to the attack on Khan Sheikhoun city, the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) documented the deaths of 91 civilians, including 32 children and 23 women (adult female), from suffocation, and the injury of 520 others. In relation to the attack on Douma city in Rural Damascus governorate, SNHR documented the deaths of 43 civilians, including 19 children and 17 women (adult female), from suffocation and the injury of nearly 550 others.
After having committed the most heinous crimes against humanity for years, the Assad regime was ousted on December 8, 2024. Chief among the Assad regime’s crimes against humanity is the use of chemical weapons in 217 documented attacks at least that killed 1,514 individuals, including 1,413 civilians. However, the head of the regime, Bashar Assad, alongside most of that regime’s senior military and security officials are still free with no accountability.
SNHR has shared the information and data it gathered on these events with the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic (COI), which in turn concluded that the Assad regime was responsible for both attacks, on Khan Sheikhoun and Douma, while the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) proved that chemical weapons were used in Khan Sheikhoun and Douma without ascertaining which party was responsible for the attacks. The OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM), established in accordance with Security Council resolution 2235 in August 2015,[1] proved that the Assad regime was responsible for the Khan Sheikhoun attack, with its mandate coming to an end as the result of a Russian veto before the Douma attack.[2] Eight years later, on January 27, 2023, the OPCW’s Investigation and Identification Team (IIT) issued its third report, which states that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that at least one Mi8/17 helicopter dropped two cylinders on apartment buildings in an area in the center of Douma city between 19:10 and 19:40 on April 7, 2018, in a military attack by Assad regime forces. The helicopter, operated by the Russian-backed Nemer ‘Tiger’ forces, operated out of al-Dmair Airbase.” SNHR has contributed to all the reports released so far by the IIT, and fully supports its mandate.
