By: Azhar Azam
*This is one of my articles (unedited) that first appeared in "Daily Times":
https://dailytimes.com.pk/488948/civilians-are-the-prime-victims-of-syrian-civil-war/
On September 23, the International Coalition to against ISIS entered its sixth year. Since the outset, it has been involved in supporting specific armed factions to expand its influence and to achieve its objectives. Now after five years of its military campaign against Daesh, the international coalition controls about 70% of the oil and gas reserves in Syria.
But as a result of civil war and international intervention in Syria, at least 560,000 people have been killed, 6.2 million have been internally displaced, and 5.6 million have forced to flee the devastated country. Syrian women are increasingly becoming victims of rapes and forced and temporary serial marriages throughout the country.
No less than 223,000 civilians including were killed 28,486 children and 27,464 women since the start of Syrian crisis in March 2011. Syrian regime forces and Iranian militias were responsible for about 90% of the civilian death toll in Syria.
Syrian Crisis Background
Stirred by Arab Spring in March 2011, thousands of Syrian people carried peaceful demonstrations across the country to demand personal freedoms and democratic reforms, which President Basahar al-Assad refused to offer.
The pacific rallies and marches quickly turned bloodstained and flared up into anti-regime protests after the ruthless Syrian regime forces conducted a crackdown and opened fire on the protestors – killing a few and detaining many.
Uprising further brewed after Syrian military arrested and tortured a group of teenagers for writing graffiti in support of Arab Spring and inhumanely killed a 13 years old boy, Hamza al-Khateeb.
In July 2011, defectors from the military formed an armed alliance – Free Syrian Army (FSA) – to fight Assad’s brutalities and to topple his government – and the civil war eventually broke throughout the country.
11% Assad-led Alawis Rule Syria
Syria is divided into a complex religious and ethnic divide. Originally the disturbances were non-sectarian but the prevalence of armed conflict gravely mined the religious dissent in the Arab Republic.
About 70% of the Syrian population is Sunni; however the country is ruled by 11% Alawites or Alawis – branded as an upshot of Shia sect – though they distance themselves from this Shia sect. Assad – an Alwai – gained power in July 2000, securing 99.7% in a controversial and uncontested presidential 2000 elections.
Assad is the son of Hafiz al-Assad who reigned Syria for 30-years. Besides Syrian president, Assad is also the commander-in-chief of Syrian armed forces and the General Secretary of ruling Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party.
Foreign Intervention
A number of regional and global players are involved in Syria to secure their ‘specific’ interests but foreign interventions have critically fueled the Syrian crisis. Whatever are the reasons behind foreign interventions in Syria – the cost is paid and paid heavily by the civilians of Syria.
Assad’s government is strongly backed by Shia-majority countries and Shiite armed organizations such as Iran, Iraq, and Lebanese Hezbollah while Sunni-majority countries such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar favor the revolts.
In September 2015, Russian military invaded into the Levant to support Assad’s regime in guise of bombing terrorist bases in Syria. The geopolitical gurus believed it as a Russian attempt to offload western pressure and bargain sanctions.
But Moscow’s stalwart support for Assad was additionally in wake of securing its strategic asset in Syrian – Tartus port. In 1971, Hafiz al-Assad handed over the port to Russia in return of providing advanced weapons to Syria. Through Tartus port, Moscow had a craving to ramp up its influence in region.
Although United States has repetitively reprimanded Assad’s serious human rights violations in Syria but it has been disinclined to involve directly into the crisis except for firing 59 Tomahawk missiles on Syrian air base in April 2017 over suspected use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime forces.
Civilians’ Death Toll
For more than eight years, Syrian citizens have suffered from a vast and terrible range of violations of staggering magnitude, which have reached the level crimes against humanity. Since March 2011, Syrian people have been exposed to horrific pattern of violations, including fatal torture, rape of men and women, and death by barrel bomb and Scud missiles and chemical weapons.
In its March 2019’s annual report, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) estimated that 223,161 civilian were killed in Syria since the start the revolution on 15-March-2011. The death toll included as much as 28,486 children and 27,464 women.
Syrian regime forces and Iranian militias were responsible for about 90% of the total civilian death toll or 198,409 killings in Syria. In addition, at least 143,176 individuals were still detained or forcibly disappeared (largely by Syrian regime forces of about 90%) at the hands of the main parties to the conflict in Syria till March 2019.
In December 2018, the observatory group said that at least a total 560,000 people were killed including civilians, Syrian regime forces and their supporting militias, and the opposition factions. The death toll included104,000 people tortured to death in regime jails.
In the lowest death toll during the 102-month war, 272 people were killed in September. A total of 134 civilians including 14 children and 10 women lost their lives. The 59-month airstrikes by Assad’s regime have so far killed 13,645 civilians including 3,150 children while more than 19,000 people including about 8,300 civilians were killed by Russian war planes since they began their military operation in Syria at the end of September 2015.
Human Displacements
Despite reduction in violence in many parts of the country over the past year, an estimated of 11.7 million people in Syria require multi-sectorial humanitarian assistance. According to the UN Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO) 2019, there were still 6.2 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the conflict-ridden country.
As of 03-October-2019, United Nations Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had registered more than 5.6 million Syrians who had fled their homes to seek asylum in the neighboring countries. Turkey, 65.1% or over 3.6 million people, was the largest host countries for Syrian refugees. Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, and Egypt were the other leading host countries.
Children are the prime victims of Syrian war
Unicef says that children are paying the heaviest price of Syrian crisis. After eight years of conflict, every Syrian child has been impacted by violence, displacement, severed family ties, and lack of access to vital services. An estimated of 2.6 million children remain displaced inside Syria, while some 2.5 million children are living as refugees in adjacent countries.
2018 was the deadliest single year for children since the start of the war. Grave violations of children’s rights – recruitment, abductions, killing, and maiming, continue unabated. Unexploded ordnance is a lethal threat to the millions of Syrian children as about five million children still need humanitarian assistance, including nearly half a million in hard-to-reach areas.
Sexual Exploitation
Women in Syria are exposed to greater risks of sexual exploitation and sexual harassments as the Syrian civil war prolongs. Syrian women are increasingly becoming victims of rapes and forced and temporary serial marriages throughout the country.
UN Gender-based Violence Area of Responsibility (GBV AoR) Whole of Syria 2019 reconfirmed that GBV particularly sexual violence and sexual harassment, domestic violence, family violence against girls and women, and early-enforced marriages continues to pervade the lives of girls and women, especially adolescent girls.
The major types of sexual violence were rape, sexual harassment, sexual exploitation, requests in return for aid, child marriage, forced marriage, and serial temporary marriage. Population from all the Syrian districts of Aleppo, AlHasakeh, Ar-Raqqa, As-Sweida, Damascus, Deir-ez-Zor, Hama, Homs, Idleb, Lattakia, Rural Damascus, and Tartous were affected by various types of violence.
*This is one of my articles (unedited) that first appeared in "Daily Times":
https://dailytimes.com.pk/488948/civilians-are-the-prime-victims-of-syrian-civil-war/
On September 23, the International Coalition to against ISIS entered its sixth year. Since the outset, it has been involved in supporting specific armed factions to expand its influence and to achieve its objectives. Now after five years of its military campaign against Daesh, the international coalition controls about 70% of the oil and gas reserves in Syria.
But as a result of civil war and international intervention in Syria, at least 560,000 people have been killed, 6.2 million have been internally displaced, and 5.6 million have forced to flee the devastated country. Syrian women are increasingly becoming victims of rapes and forced and temporary serial marriages throughout the country.
No less than 223,000 civilians including were killed 28,486 children and 27,464 women since the start of Syrian crisis in March 2011. Syrian regime forces and Iranian militias were responsible for about 90% of the civilian death toll in Syria.
Syrian Crisis Background
Stirred by Arab Spring in March 2011, thousands of Syrian people carried peaceful demonstrations across the country to demand personal freedoms and democratic reforms, which President Basahar al-Assad refused to offer.
The pacific rallies and marches quickly turned bloodstained and flared up into anti-regime protests after the ruthless Syrian regime forces conducted a crackdown and opened fire on the protestors – killing a few and detaining many.
Uprising further brewed after Syrian military arrested and tortured a group of teenagers for writing graffiti in support of Arab Spring and inhumanely killed a 13 years old boy, Hamza al-Khateeb.
In July 2011, defectors from the military formed an armed alliance – Free Syrian Army (FSA) – to fight Assad’s brutalities and to topple his government – and the civil war eventually broke throughout the country.
11% Assad-led Alawis Rule Syria
Syria is divided into a complex religious and ethnic divide. Originally the disturbances were non-sectarian but the prevalence of armed conflict gravely mined the religious dissent in the Arab Republic.
About 70% of the Syrian population is Sunni; however the country is ruled by 11% Alawites or Alawis – branded as an upshot of Shia sect – though they distance themselves from this Shia sect. Assad – an Alwai – gained power in July 2000, securing 99.7% in a controversial and uncontested presidential 2000 elections.
Assad is the son of Hafiz al-Assad who reigned Syria for 30-years. Besides Syrian president, Assad is also the commander-in-chief of Syrian armed forces and the General Secretary of ruling Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party.
Foreign Intervention
A number of regional and global players are involved in Syria to secure their ‘specific’ interests but foreign interventions have critically fueled the Syrian crisis. Whatever are the reasons behind foreign interventions in Syria – the cost is paid and paid heavily by the civilians of Syria.
Assad’s government is strongly backed by Shia-majority countries and Shiite armed organizations such as Iran, Iraq, and Lebanese Hezbollah while Sunni-majority countries such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar favor the revolts.
In September 2015, Russian military invaded into the Levant to support Assad’s regime in guise of bombing terrorist bases in Syria. The geopolitical gurus believed it as a Russian attempt to offload western pressure and bargain sanctions.
But Moscow’s stalwart support for Assad was additionally in wake of securing its strategic asset in Syrian – Tartus port. In 1971, Hafiz al-Assad handed over the port to Russia in return of providing advanced weapons to Syria. Through Tartus port, Moscow had a craving to ramp up its influence in region.
Although United States has repetitively reprimanded Assad’s serious human rights violations in Syria but it has been disinclined to involve directly into the crisis except for firing 59 Tomahawk missiles on Syrian air base in April 2017 over suspected use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime forces.
Civilians’ Death Toll
For more than eight years, Syrian citizens have suffered from a vast and terrible range of violations of staggering magnitude, which have reached the level crimes against humanity. Since March 2011, Syrian people have been exposed to horrific pattern of violations, including fatal torture, rape of men and women, and death by barrel bomb and Scud missiles and chemical weapons.
In its March 2019’s annual report, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) estimated that 223,161 civilian were killed in Syria since the start the revolution on 15-March-2011. The death toll included as much as 28,486 children and 27,464 women.
Syrian regime forces and Iranian militias were responsible for about 90% of the total civilian death toll or 198,409 killings in Syria. In addition, at least 143,176 individuals were still detained or forcibly disappeared (largely by Syrian regime forces of about 90%) at the hands of the main parties to the conflict in Syria till March 2019.
In December 2018, the observatory group said that at least a total 560,000 people were killed including civilians, Syrian regime forces and their supporting militias, and the opposition factions. The death toll included104,000 people tortured to death in regime jails.
In the lowest death toll during the 102-month war, 272 people were killed in September. A total of 134 civilians including 14 children and 10 women lost their lives. The 59-month airstrikes by Assad’s regime have so far killed 13,645 civilians including 3,150 children while more than 19,000 people including about 8,300 civilians were killed by Russian war planes since they began their military operation in Syria at the end of September 2015.
Human Displacements
Despite reduction in violence in many parts of the country over the past year, an estimated of 11.7 million people in Syria require multi-sectorial humanitarian assistance. According to the UN Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO) 2019, there were still 6.2 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the conflict-ridden country.
As of 03-October-2019, United Nations Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had registered more than 5.6 million Syrians who had fled their homes to seek asylum in the neighboring countries. Turkey, 65.1% or over 3.6 million people, was the largest host countries for Syrian refugees. Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, and Egypt were the other leading host countries.
Children are the prime victims of Syrian war
Unicef says that children are paying the heaviest price of Syrian crisis. After eight years of conflict, every Syrian child has been impacted by violence, displacement, severed family ties, and lack of access to vital services. An estimated of 2.6 million children remain displaced inside Syria, while some 2.5 million children are living as refugees in adjacent countries.
2018 was the deadliest single year for children since the start of the war. Grave violations of children’s rights – recruitment, abductions, killing, and maiming, continue unabated. Unexploded ordnance is a lethal threat to the millions of Syrian children as about five million children still need humanitarian assistance, including nearly half a million in hard-to-reach areas.
Sexual Exploitation
Women in Syria are exposed to greater risks of sexual exploitation and sexual harassments as the Syrian civil war prolongs. Syrian women are increasingly becoming victims of rapes and forced and temporary serial marriages throughout the country.
UN Gender-based Violence Area of Responsibility (GBV AoR) Whole of Syria 2019 reconfirmed that GBV particularly sexual violence and sexual harassment, domestic violence, family violence against girls and women, and early-enforced marriages continues to pervade the lives of girls and women, especially adolescent girls.
The major types of sexual violence were rape, sexual harassment, sexual exploitation, requests in return for aid, child marriage, forced marriage, and serial temporary marriage. Population from all the Syrian districts of Aleppo, AlHasakeh, Ar-Raqqa, As-Sweida, Damascus, Deir-ez-Zor, Hama, Homs, Idleb, Lattakia, Rural Damascus, and Tartous were affected by various types of violence.