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A man overcome with grief in Taftanaz. (HRW photo)
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Syrian government
forces killed at least 95 civilians and burned or destroyed hundreds of houses
during a two-week offensive in northern Idlib governorate shortly before the
ceasefire, Human Rights Watch says in a report released today.
The attacks happened in
late March and early April, as United Nations special envoy Kofi Annan was
negotiating with the Syrian government to end the fighting.
The 38-page
report, “‘They Burned My
Heart’: War Crimes in Northern Idlib during Peace Plan Negotiations,”
documents dozens of extrajudicial executions, killings of civilians, and
destruction of civilian property that qualify as war crimes, as well as
arbitrary detention and torture. The report is based on a field investigation
conducted by Human Rights Watch in the towns of Taftanaz, Saraqeb, Sarmeen,
Kelly, and Hazano in Idlib governorate in late April.
“While diplomats argued
over details of Annan’s peace plan, Syrian tanks and helicopters attacked one
town in Idlib after another,” said Anna
Neistat, associate director for program and emergencies at Human
Rights Watch. “Everywhere we went, we saw burnt and destroyed houses, shops,
and cars, and heard from people whose relatives were killed. It was as if the
Syrian government forces used every minute before the ceasefire to cause
harm.”
Human Rights Watch
documented large-scale military operations that government forces conducted
between March 22 and April 6, 2012, in opposition strongholds in Idlib
governorate, causing the death of at least 95 civilians. In each attack,
government security forces used numerous tanks and helicopters, and then moved
into the towns and stayed from one to three days before proceeding to the next
town. Graffiti left by the soldiers in all of the affected towns indicate that
the 76th Armored Brigade led the military operation.
In nine separate
incidents documented by Human Rights Watch, government forces executed 35
civilians in their custody. The majority of executions took place during the
attack on Taftanaz, a town of about 15,000 inhabitants northeast of Idlib city
on April 3 and 4.
A survivor of the
security forces’ execution of 19 members of the Ghazal family in Taftanaz
described to Human Rights Watch finding the bodies of his relatives:
We first found five bodies in a little
shop next to the house. They were almost completely burnt. We could only
identify them by a few pieces of clothes that were left. Then we entered the
house and in one of the rooms found nine bodies on the floor, next to the wall.
There was a lot of blood on the floor. On the wall, there was a row of bullet
marks. The nine men had bullet wounds in their backs, and some in their heads.
Their hands were not tied, but still folded behind.
Human Rights Watch
researchers were able to observe the bullet marks on the wall that formed a row
about 50-60 cm above the floor. Two of those executed were under 18 years old.
In several other
cases documented by Human Rights Watch, government forces opened fire and
killed or injured civilians trying to flee the attacks. The circumstances of
these cases indicate that government forces failed to distinguish between
civilians and combatants and to take necessary precautionary measures to
protect civilians. Government forces did not provide any warning to the
civilian population about the attacks. For example, 76-year-old Ali Ma’assos
and his 66-year-old wife, Badrah, were killed by machine-gun fire shortly after
the army launched its attack on Taftanaz in the morning on April 3 as they
tried to flee the town in a pick-up truck with more than 15 friends and family
members.
Upon entering the
towns, government forces and shabeeha (pro-government militias) also
burned and destroyed a large number of houses, stores, cars, tractors, and
other property. Local activists have recorded the partial or complete burning
and destruction of hundreds of houses and stores. In Sarmeen, for example,
local activists have recorded the burning of 437 rooms and 16 stores, and the
complete destruction of 22 houses.
In Taftanaz, activists
said that about 500 houses were partially or completely burned and that 150
houses had been partially or completely destroyed by tank fire or other
explosions.
Human Rights Watch
examined many of the burned or destroyed houses in the affected towns.
In
most cases, the burning and destruction appeared to be deliberate. The majority
of houses that were burned had no external damage, excluding the possibility
that shelling ignited the fire. In addition, many of the ruined houses were
completely destroyed, in contrast to those which appeared to have been hit by
tank shells, where the damage was only partial.
During the military
operations, the security forces also arbitrarily detained dozens of people,
holding them without any legal basis. About two-thirds of the detainees remain
in detention to date, despite promises by President Bashar al-Assad’s
government to release political detainees. In most cases, the fate and
whereabouts of the detainees remains unknown, raising fears that they had been
subjected to enforced disappearances. Those who have been released, many of
them elderly or disabled, told Human Rights Watch that during their detention
in various branches of the mukhabarat (intelligence agencies) in Idlib
city they had been subjected to torture and ill treatment.
Opposition fighters
were present in all of the towns prior to the attacks and in some cases tried
to prevent the army from entering the towns. In most cases, according to local
residents, opposition fighters withdrew quickly when they realized that they
were significantly outnumbered and had no means to resist tanks and artillery.
In other towns, opposition fighters left without putting up any resistance;
residents said this was in order to avoid endangering the civilian population.
The fighting in Idlib
appeared to reach the level of an armed conflict under international law, given
the intensity of the fighting and the level of organization on both sides,
including the armed opposition, who ordered and conducted retreats. This would
mean that international humanitarian law (the law of armed conflict) would
apply in addition to human rights law. Serious violations of international
humanitarian law are classified as war crimes.
Human Rights Watch
has previously documented and condemned serious abuses by opposition fighters
in Syria, including abuses in Taftanaz. These abuses should be investigated and
those responsible brought to justice. These abuses by no means justify, however,
the violations committed by the government forces, including summary executions
of villagers and the large-scale destruction of villages.
Human Rights Watch
called on the United Nations Security Council to ensure that the UN supervisory
mission deployed to Syria includes
a properly staffed and equipped human rights section that is able safely and
independently to interview victims of human rights abuses such as those
documented in this report, while protecting them from retaliation. Human Rights
Watch also called on the UN Security Council to ensure accountability for these
crimes by referring the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court,
and for the ongoing UN Commission of Inquiry to support this.
“The United Nations –
through the Commission of Inquiry and the Security Council – should make sure
that the crimes committed by Syrian security forces do not go unpunished,” said
Neistat. “The peace plan efforts will be seriously undermined if abuses
continue behind the observers’ backs.”
Eyewitness Accounts
from “They Burned My Heart…”
The soldiers had handcuffed him behind his
back. They didn’t hit him in front of me, but I saw that his eye was bruised. I
tried to be quiet and nice to the soldiers so that they would release him. They spent about 15 minutes in the house,
asking him about weapons and searching everywhere. I think they were looking
for money. I didn’t say good-bye so as to not make him sad. He didn’t say
anything either. When they left, the soldiers said that I should forget him.
Mother of Mohammad
Saleh Shamrukh, chant-leader from Saraqeb, who was summarily executed by the
Syrian security forces on March 25, 2012
***
The soldiers placed the four of us facing
a wall. They first asked Awad where his armed sons were. When Awad said that he
was an old man and that he didn’t have any armed sons, they just shot him three
times from a Kalashnikov. They then said to Ahmed that apparently 25 years in
prison had not been enough for him. When he didn’t say anything, they shot him.
They then shot Iyad without any questions and he fell on my shoulder. I
realized that it was my turn. I said there is no God but Allah and Mohammed is
his prophet and then I don’t remember anything else.
Mohammed Aiman Ezz,
43-year-old man shot three times in the back of the head and neck by government
forces in an attempted execution of four men in Taftanaz on April 4. He was the
only survivor
***
I knew in my heart it was my boys [my son
and my brother], that they were killed. I ran out, and about 50 meters from the
house there were nine bodies, next to the wall. There were still snipers on the
roofs, and we had to move very slowly, using flashlights. I pointed my
flashlight at the first body, then the second – it wasn’t Uday or Saed. Then I
asked the neighbors to help, and we found them both. Saed still had his hands
tied behind. People later told me that Uday and Saed were executed there, and
the other seven were FSA fighters brought from other places. Uday had a bullet
wound in the neck and the back of his head; Saed in his chest and neck.
“Heba” (not her real
name), mother of 15-year-old Uday Mohammed al-Omar and 21-year-old Saeed
Mustafa Barish, both executed by the Syrian security forces in Saraqeb on March
26, 2012
***
The tank was on the main road, just 10
meters away from the house. Suddenly, they fired four shells, one after the
other, into the house. I was in the house next door, with my mother and six
children. We were all thrown into the air by the blast, and for 15 minutes I
couldn’t see or hear anything. Then we went into the room that was hit by the
shells. One of the walls had a huge hole, some 1.5 meters in diameter, and the
opposite wall was completely destroyed. We found Ezzat in the rubble; we could
only see his fingers and part of his shoe. It is a miracle that his wife and
child were not hurt. They were in the same house, but went to the kitchen when
the shells hit. We took Ezzat out, but couldn’t save him. His chest was
crushed, and blood was coming out of his mouth and ears.
“Rashida” (not her real
name), a relative of 50-year-old Ezzat Ali Sheikh Dib who died when the army
shelled his house in Saraqeb on March 27, 2012
***
They put a Kalashnikov [assault rifle] to
my head and threatened to kill us all if my husband did not come home. The children
started crying. Then an officer told a soldier to get petrol and told the
children that he would burn them like he would burn their father because he is
a terrorist. When the soldier came back with some sort of liquid – it didn’t
seem to be petrol – they poured it out in three of the rooms while we were
staying in the living room. We wanted to get out of the house, but the soldiers
prevented us. My young daughters were crying and begging them to let us go. We
were all terrified. Finally, they allowed us to leave the house, but I became
even more afraid when I saw all the soldiers and tanks in the street.
“Salma” (not her real
name), whose house in Taftanaz was burnt by the soldiers on April 4, along with
the houses of her five brothers-in-law
***
They put me in the car, handcuffed, and
kept there all day, until seven in the evening. I told them, ‘I am an old man,
let me go to the bathroom,’ but they just beat me on the face. Then they
brought me to State Security in Idlib, and put me in a 30-square-meter cell
with about 100 other detainees. I had to sleep squatting on the floor. There
was just one toilet for all of us. They took me to an interrogation four times,
each time asking why some of my family members joined the FSA. I didn’t deny
it, but said there was nothing I could do to control what my relatives do. They
slapped me on the face a lot.
“Abu Ghassan” (not his
real name), 73-year-old man who was detained in one of the towns in northern
Idlib and held in detention for 18 days.
