Conflict in Syria: Indiscriminate Shelling and Destruction of Property

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs published its 22th humanitarian situation report amid increasingly widespread violence. So far, nearly 1.2 million homes have been damaged in the conflict. Of that number, 400 thousand have destroyed completely, 300 thousand have been partly destroyed, and the destruction of infrastructure has affected half a million homes. This amounts to one-third of all Syrian homes damaged by the conflict.

On 5 February 2013, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic published its assessment of the human rights situation in the light of the ongoing conflict between government forces and the armed opposition. The Commission confirmed through 445 interviews of victims and witnesses in Syria that the parties to the conflict have committed war crimes, including murder and torture, looting and destruction of property, as well as endangering the civilian population by targeting civilian areas.

The Commission’s report depicted the miserable economic situation and suffering incurred by Syrian citizens after the destruction of infrastructure and housing and medical facilities, electricity and water, and the difficulty in accessing basic necessities. It described the deliberate shelling of bread and food queues by government forces that has led to the flight of hundreds of thousands of civilians. The ever-increasing number of internally displaced has already reached 2 million people.

The Commission inventoried the range of abuses committed during combat operations, most important of which has been unlawful attacks on areas with high population density, and the looting and destruction of property that had been practiced as a collective punishment. Basing its report on interviews of victims and satellite images, the Commission found that government forces had bombed several areas in Syria at random. The stories collected from high-ranking defectors from the government forces suggest that military commanders intentionally ordered dense population centers to be targeted directly and widely, such as the attack on the city al-Harak (Hawran), which resulted in mass killings by government forces.

The looting and destruction of property was recorded report cases of deliberately where government forces shelled homes residential buildings wantonly and without military necessity and beyond repair. In preparation for burning or destruction of property in general, or that of dissidents and supporters of the opposition, they also carried out looting of properties, in addition to the demolition and the destruction of civilian homes with air strikes or artillery. The report records the destruction of 300 homes with explosives and bulldozers in the Tadamun neighborhood of the capital Damascus, among the 1,000 buildings that government forces completely destroyed there. Likewise, the report attributes indiscriminate attacks to antigovernment groups by launching attacks on government forces from that neighborhood. Thus, both parties bear responsibility for the destruction of those areas and war crimes that have destroyed lives and put the civilian population in grave danger.

For more details, access the report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, 2013.