«Break the Siege» Campaign right no1: the right to life
Homs - Eastern Ghouta - Daryaa - Mouadamia Southern Damascus neighborhoods and towns
Siege of Cities in Syria
Policy of Genocide and Suspicious International Silence
The policy of besieging Syrian cities is considered one of the worst types of crimes carried out by the Syrian regime since the beginning of the Syrian Revolutionbecause this policy contains multiple crimesthatlead to slow death and on the widest scale, without causing anynoise, as murdering with a silencer pistol! Syrian Revolution suffered fromimposingsiege since itsearly months;inDaraa, the siege began in the second month of the revolution, then after a short time the siege of Lattakia, but it was not a tight siege on one hand, and was not a long-term, as we will see in the following years on the other hand. The international silence about this crime on one hand , and its effective influence to cause maximum damage to civilians without arousing the public opinion on the other hand, have led to the persistence of the Syrian regime tocommitthis crime, broadly and severely, especially in Homs and its countryside , Damascus and its countryside. The policy of collective punishment practiced by the Syrian Regimethrough the siegeleaves its negative impact on more than one and a half million Syrian civilians, and leads to serioushealthy, economic, social and environmental effects, including severe violations for allinternational conventionsof human rights, especially the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - thatSyria participated in drafting- and the two International Covenants. This requires effort from all international, regional, local, political, human rights and media organizations and bodies in order to break the siege and stop the suffering of the trapped. What happens today in the Damascus Suburbs and Homs is not a Syrian internal affair, it is a humaninternational issue, of people under foreign occupation on one hand and oppressive regime on the other hand;a regime that does not hesitate to commit all crimes against humanity and war crimes against civilians. The international Community stressedmore than once the importance of promoting international cooperation in the field of human rights as one of the most important purposes of the UN, and thathuman rights and fundamental freedoms are birthright of all human beings, and governments are essentially responsible to protect and defend them,as these rights are universal, interdependent and indivisible , according to what has been emphasized in Vienna WorkDeclaration of the International Conference on Human Rights in 1993.
Genocide by the siege
Besieging Homs and Damascus Suburbs is considered a typical form of genocide, after the completion of moral and material elements of the crime, according to what is stipulated in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The siege leads to bodily and mental damage to civilians in the besieged areas, and intentionally subjects them to life conditions in which they partly or whollyperish. The crime of genocide by the siege imposed in Syria becomes more dangerous when it is accompanied with war crimes perpetratedin parallel on the same areas. At the time these areas are undersiege, indiscriminate shelling continues on these areas, including attacks against buildings dedicated to religious, educational, artistic, scientific and charitable affairs, in addition to historicalplaces, hospitals and places where the sick and wounded shelter. Attacks are intentionally carried out against civilian residents and sites despite a prior knowledge that it will result in animmense loss of lives, injury to civilians, or severe large-scale long- term damage to natural environment. Attacks with chemical weapons carried outby Syrian regime’s forces on Ghota on 08/21/2013 show a perfectmodelof war crimes accompanied with crimes of genocide; the attacks targeted the besieged areas and the use of chemical weapons has been proven by the report of the UN Committee to investigate allegations of the use of chemical weapons in Damascus and also submitted to the UN Security Council on 16/9/2013. TheInternational Community ignoredthecriminals who committed the crime of using chemical weapons and neglected the suffering of the Syrian people who are slowly dying in a painful way that has much more negative impactsthan the effects of the chemical weapons,and they focused instead of that
on getting rid of these weapons; this negligence wasa huge shock, not only to Syrians, but also to all activists working in the field of Human Rights and to what theyhave achieved to humanity since the End of the World War II. This international negligence is a major setback of all achievements of International Conventions in the field of education on human rights, so it is no longer possible for local Syrian organizations of human rights and in the region also to talk about the universality of human rights and the international solidarity in the field of human rights, after excessive, deliberate and unprecedented disregard to allmassive violations taking place by Assad’s regime in Syria. Therefore, Break the Siege Campaign is mainly heading to all relevant organizations and bodies seriously dealing with the Siege Issue; not only for the sake of the besieged areas, but also in order to maintain the existence of the Human Rights System as an alternative to the Benefits System that does not care to Human Beings.
Impact of the siege on Civilian Residents
The siege, as a crime of genocide, is a crime containinga group of massive violations against civilians in the besieged areas, and therefore it is difficult to specify these abuses or determinethe number of the affected due to its wide-scale influence and the large number of the affected; in parallel with the limited possibilities of activists in these areas and the ongoing shelling and sniping. It should be here mentioned that the siege does not onlymeanpreventing food and medical supplies, but also includes preventing individuals from getting in and out of these areas in addition to stopping basic services,such as water , electricity and telecommunications. Lack of water, food and medical supplies resulted in diseases spreading largely in the besieged areas, asthe health situation of people with chronic diseases and injuries, pregnant women and children less than five years old got worse and worse. The siege also causedtrash pilesin an unprecedented way, resulting in environmental and public health crisis in addition to the spread of rodents and mosquitoes, and it also led to the spread of diseases on a large scale. This siege led to stop the educational services in the besieged areas,as students couldn’t go totheir universities and institutes outside these areas in addition to stopping all other public services, especially hospitals and health centers that operate at their minimum capabilitythrough volunteer medical teams; without the presence of the essential medical supplies, and under the invalidity of most medical devices that need mending and spare parts that cannot be obtained due to the siege. A large number of families under the siege were isolated from each other, as one of their members was outside the area when the siege was imposed and
then could notjoin his family; in many cases he has no other place togo to. All these conditions resulted in the displacement or exodus of tens of thousands of civilians from these areas, and thatwas the most prominent effect of the siege;as most besieged neighborhoods areaveragely empty of 60 % of theirresidents. It should be noted that the effects of the siege vary from one region to another according to thestartof the siege, the degree of its strictness and to the nature of the besieged area. In agricultural areas, such as Darayya,Kafar Batna and Mleha, life resources are available to help residents to withstand more thanin purely residential areas, such as Muadamiyeh, Yalda, Qudsayya and Hameh, where effects of the siege is severer.
Reality of the Siege in Damascus and its Suburbs Areas
Number of Number Date of Besieged of beginning )individual( Injured of the siege
Notes
Besieged Districts in Damascus Al-Hajar al-Asswad
100000
4000
19/07/2013
Bombardment targeted 26 schools, 7 houses of worship, 2 hospitals, and the power supply station
Assali
4000
300
15/07/2013
Assad’s forces bombed the 8 schools in the neighborhood in addition to 9 pharmacies and 6 mosques
11/03/2013
All the 20 facilities in the neighborhood were bombed and some of them were turned by Assad’s forces into military headquarters
Barzeh
2000
500+
Qadam
3500
50
2/02/2012
One school was completely destroyed and two were almost completely destroyed as a medical clinic was damaged by shelling on the neighborhood
Tadamon
3800
50+
6/2013
All facilities with large parts of the neighborhood were completely devastated
Yarmouk Camp
45000
-
25/6/2013
of the district’s facilities were de� % 500 molished and the rest are invalid due to bombardment and siege
Qaboun
40000
700
16/7/2013
All facilities with parts of the neighborhood and a large industrial area were bombed and completely destructed
2/2013
All facilities of the neighborhood, such as clinics, electricity center and telecommunications center were bombed
Joubar
10000
1200
Eastern Ghota
Douma
250000
3000+
15/10/2013
Large proportion of facilities were fully devastating and 3 thousand cases of permanent disability were caused due to shelling on the town by Assad›s forces
Harasta
220000
2600+
15/11/2012
Water pumps, telephone department and electrical power transformers were bombed
1/6/2012
Assad’s forces shelled 2 hospitals, 3 schools and 3 mosques, while the number of casualties in the town reached 500 and the number of children reached 10 thousand
Kafar Batna
30000
500
Hazzeh
Irbeen
45000
30000
20
-
1/3/2013
Three schools were destroyed by Assad›s forces, while the number of the besieged children was about 15,000
04/2012
The only hospital in the city was bombed and became out of service, while 5 schools were fully destroyed and significant damages caused in facilities children and a medical center with 8000 weak capability are besieged, while the number of the destroyed facilities in the town reached 11
400+
1/4/2013
11000
500
04/2013
schools and 4 mosques were bombed, 4 and the town ‚s Water Unit was targeted
25000
100
03/10/2013
martyrs and 100 wounded during a 10 relatively short period of siege
25/11/2012
Schools, 11 houses of worship, all 22 bakeries, hospitals and clinics were bombed and destroyed by missiles of Assad’s forces
19/11/2012
children are under the siege - 250 2000 thousand are displaced escaping the siege and bombardment - more than 960 martyrs since the start of the siege
1/12/2012
schools closed due to bombardment 8 and siege - the medical situation is very difficult with the presence of 350 wounded in the town
9/6/2012
All facilities were bombed and destroyed - Public parks turned into cemeteries Services were out from the beginning of the siege
25/5/2012
schools were bombed and education 25 is stopped due to the shelling and the siege; meanwhile there are more than 20 thousand children
9/7/2013
Communications are out for 6 months on the besieged area
Hammouriyeh
27960
Zamalka Mleha Western Ghota
Muadamiyet al-Sham
Darayya
8000
6600
1000+
1000+
Southern Suburbs
Yalda
Old Homs
30000
3200
Northern Suburbs of Homs
155000
Western Suburbs of Homs
30000
350
500+
600+
125