The ongoing war in Syria has resulted in 6.8 million refugees globally, representing the highest number reported.
A top Syrian opposition official said world powers should follow in the footsteps of Qatar after the Gulf state threw its weight behind global efforts to hold the Bashar Al Assad regime accountable for the 2018 Douma chemical attack.
Speaking to Doha News, charge d’affaires of the Syrian embassy in Qatar, Bilal Tourkiya praised Doha for the move and said the embassy has “complete trust” in Qatar’s unwavering stance towards efforts in Syria, urging international partners to adopt the same position.
“We call on our partners and friends to adopt similar positions of the state of Qatar, and to join efforts to ensure accountability, and work towards a political solution in Syria in accordance with the Geneva Communique 1 and the Security Council Resolution No. 2254,” Tourkiya said.
In a statement on Saturday, Qatar’s foreign ministry expressed its “full support” for global efforts to hold the Assad regime accountable, citing new findings of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
Qatar said the report “reveals to the world once again the ugliness and brutality of this unscrupulous and inhumane regime.”
The statement comes as Qatar staunchly refuses to normalise with the Assad regime for its ongoing crimes against Syrians, as countries in the region, namely the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, re-establishe ties with Assad.
Commenting on the Gulf state’s statement, Tourkiya said it displays yet again Qatar’s “firm and principled stances” in supporting the people of Syria while “forming a solid front against the horrific crimes and massacres unleashed by the Assad regime”.
“The statement expressed the moral values of Qatar, which stand by justice, and support international accountability efforts. Qatar has maintained a solid record in international mediation and working to find solutions to international conflicts,” Tourkiya said.
He added that “the criminals with blood on their hands belong behind bars, not at the table of negotiations.”
“The Syrians, along with their struggle towards change, have found the solid support of their brothers of Qatar in all forms. The Syrians will be always grateful for these noble stances,” Tourkiya noted.
Backed by Russia, the Assad regime led a chemical attack on the Syrian city of Douma, where at least 70 civilians were killed. Moscow, however, denied the use of chemical weapons, accusing the OPCW of providing factual and technical errors.
‘Unscrupulous murderer’
In the latest and third report from The Hague, the OPCW Investigation and Identification Team (IIT) concluded on Friday that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that the Syrian Arab Air Forces were the perpetrators” of the deadly attack.
Some of its findings pointed to the presence of “at least one helicopter” belonging to the Syrian “Tiger Forces” Elite Unit which dropped two yellow cylinders containing toxic chlorine gas on two civilian-inhabited apartment buildings.
“The IIT considered a range of possible scenarios and tested their validity against the evidence they gathered and analysed to reach their conclusion: that the Syrian Arab Air Forces are the perpetrators of this attack,” the report said.
Commenting on the report, Tourkiya said it revealed “what the world has already known.”
“[The] Assad regime is an unscrupulous murderer that has crossed all red lines and, without hesitation, committed unimaginable brutal, inhuman crimes. The world’s memory cannot forget one massacre till another is revealed,” he said.
Rights groups continue to unveil more evidence of crimes against civilians by the Assad regime.
Last year, leaked footage displayed evidence of mass executions of innocent Syrians in 2013, known as the “Tadamon Massacre”.
The footage was released by The Guardian and showed at least 41 Syrian and Palestinian civilians being executed and tortured in Tadamon, near Syria’s capital Damascus.
The total victims of the massacre was 288, including 12 children.
Clips showed blindfolded victims whose hands were tied behind their backs running as they were being shot by Assad’s forces into a mass grave. The killers then proceeded to pour fuel on the victims piled up in the pit before burning them.
Separately, the Assad regime has carried out horrifying methods of torture, some of which were exposed in 2014 through the Caesar photographs.
Leaked by a defected Syrian military photographer, more than 28,000 photos of deaths under government custody displayed the cruelty of the regime.
“The photos of Caesar, the Tadamon massacre, the usage of barrel bombs over the cities, and the list goes on. On top of that, the regime has become an international drug dealer; utilising the armed militias in Syria to manufacture and traffic drugs in the region and across the globe,” Tourkiya said.
Syrian crisis
Syria has been mired in an ongoing war and a worsening humanitarian crisis since Assad started violent crackdowns on peaceful protests in 2011 during the Arab Spring.
At the height of the uprisings, Qatar shut down its embassy in Syria and openly called on Assad to step down. It was also the first country to establish an embassy for the Syrian opposition.
The Arab League had suspended Syria’s membership during the revolution from the bloc due to Assad’s ongoing war crimes against civilians.
The total number of forcibly displaced people worldwide reached 89.3 million by the end of 2021. Out of the total reported, 27.1 million are refugees and 53.2 million are internally displaced.
The ongoing war in Syria has resulted in 6.8 million refugees globally, representing the highest number reported.
Children make up an estimated 36.5 million (41%) of the total forcibly displaced people reported as 1.5 million children were born as refugees.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) said that at least 1,271 civilians, including 229 children, and 104 victims of torture were killed in Syria in 2021 alone.
The UN Human Rights Office estimates more than 306,000 civilians have been killed over the span of 11 years in Syria, with independent rights groups estimating the number to be much higher.
