UN body includes Syrian regime violations in Ghouta among ‘war crimes’

A Syrian child receives medical treatment after the Assad regime carried out a poisonous gas attack in Eastern Ghouta, in Damascus, Syria on 7 March 2018 [Dia Al Din Samout/Anadolu Agency]

The UN’s Independent Commission of Inquiry has characterised the siege imposed by the Syrian regime on eastern Ghouta as “war crimes and crimes against humanity”.

The commission said in a report released on Wednesday that the Syrian regime had used barbaric tactics against civilians in eastern Ghouta. It added that residents in the area were subjected to the longest suffocating siege in modern history, and that they suffered great psychological and physical pain as a result of the attacks by the regime and its allies.

Furthermore, said the UN body, the regime led by Bashar Al-Assad intensified its air and ground attacks on eastern Ghouta during the period from February to April this year. It pointed out that people had been left to die, despite the possibility of them being saving.

Read: Death toll rises to 85 in Syria East Ghouta chemical attack

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