16/11/12

(Reuters) - Britain would like to formally recognise the Syrian opposition’s fledgling coalition but needs to know more about its plans first, Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Friday.

The group was formed in Doha at the weekend in an attempt to unify the fractious movement trying to topple Bashar al-Assad and secure international recognition and arms.

Members of the coalition, including its leader Mouaz Alkhatib, are due to meet Hague and other Western officials in London on Friday before heading to Paris on Saturday.

France became the first European power to recognise the new body on Tuesday but other Western states are holding back, uneasy over the presence of radical Islamists among the rebels and accusations by U.N. investigators of war crimes committed by rebel fighters.

“We would like to be able at an early stage to recognise them as the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people,” Hague told reporters. “We need their assurances about being inclusive of all communities.”

He urged the coalition to set out a credible plan for political transition and widen its support among the Syrian people as conditions for official British recognition.

Hague said the appointment of a vice president and showing a clear commitment to human rights were also urgent priorities.

The conflict in Syria, triggered by the Arab Spring-inspired uprising against Assad in March last year, has taken on an increasingly sectarian tone, and Syria’s minorities fear the rise of the mainly Sunni Muslim opposition.

Alkhatib is a moderate Sunni Muslim cleric.

Sunni Muslims are the majority in Syria, while Assad is a member of the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam. Syria’s other minorities have had a measure of protection under Assad’s largely secular, autocratic rule.

ARM THE REBELS?

An estimated 38,000 people have been killed since the uprising began. Stalled efforts to stem the violence have received a renewed push since the re-election of U.S. President Barack Obama earlier this month.

The French foreign minister said on Thursday that France would in the coming weeks discuss whether to supply arms to Syrian opposition forces, and Hague said on Friday that Britain does not “rule out any option” in handling the crisis.

However, he appeared to play down the prospects of supplying military aid, at least in the near future.

“We are conscious that this ultimately needs, whatever happens, it needs a diplomatic and political solution. A military victory of one side over the other would be a long, expensive process in terms of human life,” Hague said.

He said Britain’s National Security Council, which met on Thursday, had discussed giving military aid to the Syrian opposition, but that Britain had not changed its position and would continue to supply only non-lethal assistance.

Hague said he might be able to make a decision on whether to recognise the Syrian coalition “in the coming days” and that he would make a statement to parliament on the issue next week.

European foreign and defence ministers are expected to meet on Monday to discuss Syria.

15/10/12

(CNN) — The war in Syria has led to another war of words internationally, with Russia slamming a report that accuses the Syrian air force of using Russian-made cluster bombs.

“There is no confirmation to this. … There are loads of weapons in this region, including in Syria and other countries of the region, and arms are supplied there in large quantities and illegally,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, according to Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency.

Citing witnesses and videos, Human Rights Watch released a report Sunday saying Syrian government forces were using cluster bombs — explosives that can kill or disfigure anyone who touches its fragments.

The report says the cluster bombs are Soviet-made, but says it’s unclear how or w

“Syria’s disregard for its civilian population is all too evident in its air campaign, which now apparently includes dropping these deadly cluster bombs into populated areas,” said Steve Goose, arms director at Human Rights Watch. “Cluster bombs have been comprehensively banned by most nations, and Syria should immediately stop all use of these indiscriminate weapons that continue to kill and maim for years.”

More than 70 countries have signed a treaty banning the use of cluster bombs, but Syria is not among them.

The bombs are particularly vicious because they explode in the air, sending dozens or hundreds of smaller bombs over an area the size of a football field, according to Human Rights Watch.

“These bomblets often fail to explode on initial impact, leaving duds that act like landmines and explode when handled,” the group said.

In other developments:

Turkey searches Syria-bound plane

For the second time in a week, Turkish officials are searching a civilian airplane headed to Syria, in what appears to be the enforcement of a new Turkish air blockade against the Syrian government.

Armenian and Turkish diplomats confirmed to CNN that an Armenian cargo plane destined for the battle-scarred Syrian city of Aleppo stopped first in the Turkish city of Erzurum for an inspection of its cargo Monday morning.

Unlike last week’s unexpected grounding of a Syrian passenger plane flying from Moscow to Damascus, the current airplane inspection appeared to have been agreed upon ahead of time by Armenian and Turkish authorities.

Diplomatic front: Special envoy to Syria visits Iran and Iraq

Desperate to find a solution to Syria’s bloody civil war, international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi visited the country’s key ally in the region, Iran, before heading to Iraq on Monday.

Brahimi met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, calling for an end to the flow of arms to both sides of the conflict, Brahimi’s spokesman said Monday.

Rebel fighters have accused Iran of sending advisers to help Syrian President Bashar al-Assad battle the popular uprising.

Before Brahimi left, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi handed him a “written and unofficial proposal” for resolving the Syrian crisis, Iran’s IRNA news agency reported Monday. Details of the plan were not publicized.

Brahimi, the U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria, is on a tour of key countries in the region. Over the weekend, he met with Syrian opposition leaders in Istanbul and with Turkish officials.

Turkey is becoming more intertwined with the Syrian crisis. The country is hosting about 100,000 Syrian refugees, and cross-border shelling that killed five Turkish civilians led to a heightened confrontation between the two neighbors.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly denounced al-Assad, accusing him of massacring his own people and calling for his resignation.

Syria has berated its former ally, accusing Turkey of arming and funding Syrian rebels. CNN journalists have witnessed light weapons — assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns — coming from Turkey to Syrian rebels.

Background

The opposition says more than 30,000 people have been killed since March 2011, when anti-government protesters took to the streets calling for political reform and an end to four decades of Assad family rule. The government responded with a violent clampdown, spawning an armed conflict that has spiraled into a civil war.

CNN cannot independently confirm reports of casualties in Syria because the government has restricted access by international journalists.

05/10/12

By Associated Press, Updated: Friday, October 5, 11:13 AM

02/10/12

A Free Syrian Army fighter during clashes with forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad in Aleppo, the nation’s largest city.

By ANBEIRUT, Lebanon — Chaos continued to spread in Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, on Monday, as rebels attacked the towering municipality building with rockets, sending civil servants fleeing from one of the few government buildings still functioning as dozens of soldiers worked to defend the city center. NE BARNARD

“We don’t want to hurt the employees, but we want them not to come to work or they will be killed,” Sa’id Abu Abdo, 25, an armed insurgent, said in Aleppo after the attack. “We will liberate each building in the city.”

In a city that was once considered a bastion of support for President Bashar al-Assad, and for a time was spared armed conflict, two months of pitched battles have taken a heavy toll, disrupting the city and threatening to open new rifts among ethnic groups that have long coexisted there.

Compared to six weeks ago, the contrast observed on Monday was striking. Municipal services have collapsed in many areas, and Christian, Kurdish and wealthy Sunni Muslim neighborhoods that had felt secure when fighting began have been the site of clashes once limited to the poorer Sunni areas. In one Aleppo neighborhood, corpses lay uncollected, gnawed by cats and dogs, and piles of garbage attracted clouds of black flies.

Most of the city’s malls and many health centers in anti government neighborhoods were closed. Even police stations appeared abandoned; the force draws mostly from rural and working-class areas where support for the uprising is strong. Some residents reported that their neighborhoods had been without drinking water or electricity for weeks.

Some Christians, historically a vital part of Aleppo’s bustling ethnic mix, have taken up arms to guard their neighborhoods and churches. Many of Syria’s minority communities have either sided with President Assad, fearing his fall would leave them vulnerable to the Sunni-led opposition, or stayed out of the conflict because they did not trust either side. One man patrolling his largely Christian neighborhood with a Kalashnikov rifle said the government was arming Armenian Christians in what he called an attempt to draw them into the conflict.

“Today it is clear for us that the Muslims from the countryside want to destroy our city,” he said. “They have nothing to lose.”

He identified himself as Gano, an Armenian member of what he called a popular committee recently organized to defend the neighborhood, Aziziyah, which was sheltering refugees from other Christian neighborhoods where fighting had broken out.

But he said he mistrusted the government, which he said was trying to revive an armed Armenian group it had once supported against Turkey.

“No way, because we will be a legitimate target for the Muslim rebels,” he said. “The regime wants to use us. We want to live in peace or leave. We are a minority in this country and cannot face the Muslim majority.”

As the fighting raged across the city Monday,11 people were killed and 20 wounded when a shell fell on the Othman Bin Matghoon Mosque in the neighborhood of Masaken Hnano during dawn prayers, the Local Coordinating Committees, an anti-Assad group, said. The Syrian state news service said that government forces had retaken control of two rebel neighborhoods and quoted residents as saying they “stressed their rejection of all acts of terrorism and sabotage committed by the mercenary terrorists,” its shorthand for rebels.

The road from Damascus to Aleppo was crowded on Saturday with government troops headed for the city.

In a city that has been a commercial hub for millenniums, business seemed to have almost halted; shopping malls were closed, and the few open shops were selling bread for five times its normal price.

In the city’s medieval center, much of the old marketplace lay in smoking ruins on Monday. Heavy, ancient stone walls had collapsed.

Nearby, the 12th-century citadel at the heart of the old city appeared to be damaged, its heavy wooden door pockmarked with bullets and a few stones broken from its gate. Government soldiers had taken up positions there, as well as in the old city’s Umayyad Mosque, where snipers could be seen on the minaret.

Even residents who supported the uprising appeared dejected about the damage to the city, where traces of fire and ash littered the old city and smoke lingered from a blaze the day before in the paint and chemical supply shops of Bab al-Nasr.

“It is a very sad city — it has been sad for the past few months,” said an anti-Assad activist who gave his name as Mohammed.

Abu Mahmoud, a wealthy, white-bearded garment merchant, exuded sadness even inside his well-appointed, undamaged home. He said he was on the verge of fleeing to Turkey, where his sons had opened a small clothing business.

“The rebels came to liberate the city,” he said. “But we got destruction, not freedom. The Assad forces don’t care about the stones or the people. The regime is ready to destroy each house, each shop and each building to keep the power for the Assad family.”

30/09/12

NO ONE SHOULD HAVE TO LIVE LIKE THIS!

Displaced Syrians languish in border limbo

Fighting has forced thousands of Syrians to flee their homes, but many are stuck at in the border regions as neighbouring nations refuse to grant them entry.

Al Jazeera’s Andrew Simmons reports from a makeshift refugee camp in Idlib province, northern Syria.

29/09/12

Rome, 13 Sept. (AKI) - The Italian foreign ministry has donated 250,000 euros to a UN appeal to help over 80,000 Syrian refugees who have fled to Turkey as the conflict between rebels and Syria’s authoritarian government worsens.

Nearly 2.5 million people need help within Syria while 230,000 have taken refuge in neighbouring countries amid the 18-month conflict which has escalated into a civil war in which over 20,000 people have died, according to the UN.

“The funds will help the Turkish authorities take in the growing flow of Syrian refugees, and show Italy’s continuing commitment in responding to the dramatic humanitarian emergency caused by the crisis in Syria,” the ministry said in a press release.

Italy’s foreign minister Giulio Terzi on Saturday met UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon, who earlier in the month appealed to nations to increase their efforts to help the victims of the violence in Syria..

At the end of August, Italy’s overseas aid body, Italian Development Cooperation organised a humanitarian flight with 30 tons of aid supplies and equipment to build four new reception camps in Turkey, the foreign ministry said.

27/09/12

Military prosecutors have charged eight Syrians with “unlawful assembly” after riots erupted this week at their refugee camp in northern Jordan, a judicial official said on Thursday.

“State security court prosecutors on Wednesday accused eight Syrian refugees of unlawful assembly and carrying out riots” at the UN-run Zaatari refugee camp near the border with Syria, the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The men, who face up to three years in jail if convicted, have been remanded in custody for 14 days, he said.

On Monday night, Jordanian anti-riot police fired tear gas to quell a demonstration by angry Syrians protesting their living conditions after they torched a tent and destroyed property in Zaatari.

The next day, the government said it would isolate unmarried men at the camp, which houses more than 30,000 Syrians, to avoid more problems, insisting that Amman “will not tolerate such acts.”

In August, similar disturbances took place at the camp, where Jordan said stone-throwing refugees wounded more than 20 police in a protest.

The refugees have repeatedly complained of bad living conditions at the camp, but Jordan, which says it is hosting more than 200,000 Syrian, complains of limited resources to cope with the growing influx.

The UN refugee agency warned Thursday that there could be as many as 700,000 Syrian refugees in neighboring countries by the end of the year, up from 300,000 now.

-AFP

27/09/12

Syrian internally displaced languish

in squalor at Turkey’s border

Northern Syria (CNN) — On the northern edge of this war-torn country, barely a hundred meters from the Turkish border, thousands of desperate Syrians slept in the dirt.

They were hard to spot at first, hidden among ancient olive groves.

But as the sun rose, bodies stirred beneath their filthy blankets, next to pitiable shelters of plastic sheets strung up between olive trees.

Children began scavenging in surrounding fields for twigs to use for cooking fires. Women lined up next to a water tank pumping milky, chalky water presumed to have given many residents of this make-shift camp diarrhea.

A month ago there was no camp here.

But now rebels from a local Free Syrian Army group that slept in a tent with the words “police office” spray-painted on it estimated there were between 5,500 and 6,000 people living here, with more arriving every day.

“I came here because my house was destroyed,” said Youssef Dabul, an English-speaking 30-year-old man who said he used to manage a KFC restaurant in Aleppo.

“I never imagined in all my life to come here and live under the olive trees.”

Many of the residents told similar stories of rockets and air-strikes pummeling their villages and towns, forcing them to flee their homes.

Ousama Hamdou sat on a plastic mat under an olive tree holding his 2-year-old daughter Maram. Long, wide scars stretched across her chest, still pink from the explosion that left her badly burned last month.

“I don’t know what exploded, whether it was a rocket or a bomb,” Hamdou said. The explosion destroyed his home in the battleground city of Aleppo, in a flashpoint neighborhood called Sakari.

When a reporter asked “how are you” in Arabic to Maram, she didn’t respond. Hamdou explained that last month’s explosion left the little girl deaf.

In his other arm, he held Maram’s one-and-a-half-month old brother, whose face was covered with insect bites.

“He’s being bitten by mosquitoes, and he has diarrhea and fever,” Hamdou said, adding that he and his family of eight had already spent more than two weeks waiting here by the border for the Turks to let them in.

“Every day that we stay here we come closer to dying.”

For more than a year, Turkey maintained what it described as an “open door policy” for Syrian refugees fleeing their government’s military assaults.

Turkish border guards met families who escaped to the border fence with vans and buses that transported them to camps that foreign dignitaries have frequently described as clean, well-managed and orderly.

But over the last month, the refugee population in Turkey has swelled to more than 87,000 people, prompting Ankara to at least partially shut its “open door” policy as the Turkish government struggles to build more camps.

“Our speed of constructing camps…cannot compete with the pace of the violence of the Ba’ath regime against its own people,” said Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Selcuk Unal, in a phone interview with CNN.

“There is no policy change,” another Turkish official insisted, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We intend to continue this policy of open door as long as we can. The thing is, our capabilities are being strained.”

“We’ve started to extend humanitarian aid, food, medicine, to the zero point on the border,” the official added. “That’s the best we can do at the moment.”

There were signs of food distribution and delivery of basic supplies at the olive orchard camp.

But no international aid organizations appeared to have a presence here.

As parents have watched their children succumb to disease due to the filthy conditions, tempers have periodically flared.

“I’m ready to beg [Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip] Erdogan to help us,” said a man dressed in a track suit who called himself Abu Saleh. He showed a laminated card that identified him as an FSA fighter. But Abu Saleh explained he quit the rebel movement after his wife was killed by a government air strike last month. Now the former rebel was trying to transport his surviving children to safety in Turkey.

An hour later, Abu Saleh led a procession of about a hundred men and boys past piles of burning garbage, to the barbed wire border fence. There, under the eyes of Turkish gendarme officers watching from a guard tower that overlooked the camp, the refugees held a futile protest, begging the Turks to let them in.

“Erdogan, Erdogan, today we sleep in Turkey,” the crowd chanted.

More: Report details Syrian children’s horror stories

“We want to send a message to the leaders of the Arab world, of the Islamic world, they abandoned us,” Abu Saleh yelled. “And the first one who let us down was Obama.”

As the crowd chanted, a lone Turkish municipal employee worked a few meters away on the Turkish side of the fence, spreading mortar onto a recently constructed cinder block wall.

In the Syrian village below the olive orchard camp, hundreds of other displaced families had taken shelter in schools and a village mosque.

There were new arrivals every day.

A pick up truck loaded with at least 30 people and their belongings rolled up outside of one of the schools on Wednesday. A woman who only gave the name Um Mohamed, said this wasn’t the first time her family vacated their homes in the village of Kafr Zeita, near the city of Hama.

“We fled our homes many times before to neighboring villages,” she said, still sitting in the back of the loaded pick up truck. “But now we can’t stay there…the situation is very, very bad. Rockets and bombs, falling day and night.”

Um Mohamed’s family also wanted to go to Turkey.

Since Turkish authorities were only allowing a few hundred refugees to enter every day, some Syrians resorted to desperate tactics to escape their country.

Under the cover of pre-dawn darkness, a family of at least ten stood quietly in fields not far from the Turkish border fence. With a signal from a smuggler, they then walked single-file towards the border, carrying suitcases and bags on their heads.

The family started one-by-one crawling through the barbed wire fence. Suddenly, flash-lights flared in the darkness.

A squad of Turkish gendarme soldiers ran along the fence towards the refugees, bellowing at the top of their lungs. Moments later, the family members came stumbling back to Syria, still clutching their suitcases.

For now, there would be no escape from Syria.

26/09/12

+18 Syria, Damascus, Finding of four

burned corpses in Al-Hajar Al-Aswad

neighborhood

26/09/12

#Syria, 104 civilians bodies were in #Damascus suburb. #Another massacre by Assad that no one mentioned today

26/09/12

Though President Bashar Assad seems to have a

grip on Damascus, it’s unclear how strong it is as

people go about their business behind closed

doors.

Syrian firefighters battle a blaze at a school in Damascus, where several bombs went off Tuesday. Activists say the school was being used by regime forces. (Syrian Arab News Agency / September 26, 2012)

DAMASCUS, Syria — Hours after two car bombs exploded recently in Syria’s capital, the few residents still willing to venture out on what would normally be a lively Friday night were gathered at the Sham City Center mall, inside thick walls with entrances guarded by metal detectors.

In the food court, families and young couples lingered over ice cream cones and greasy American-style fast food. Most shops were empty save for their sales staff.

Outside, almost a minute passed before a vehicle did. Cabs were few and far between.

The streets have changed from two months ago, when the armed uprising against President Bashar Assad that has rocked much of the rest of the country finally struck more than a dozen neighborhoods here.

The Damascus Volcano, as the rebels termed the offensive, quickly fizzled as the government exhibited its willingness to bomb neighborhoods of its own capital, forcing outgunned rebels to swiftly withdraw.

But it’s not clear how strong the government’s grip really is and how long it can last.

Syrian officials are intent on sending a message that life is back to normal in the capital and that it remains firmly in their control. Photos of Assad and occasionally of his father remain omnipresent on the sides of buildings, along with the Syrian flag. Checkpoints have proliferated and the security presence is everywhere.

Yet the sound of shelling is never too far away, especially as the government escalated its bombardment of southern Damascus neighborhoods last week, forcing rebels to retreat. But the rebels responded. On Tuesday, they claimed to have killed dozens of army officers and militiamen in a bomb attack on a meeting of security forces.

Meanwhile, the passport office is flooded with Syrians seeking to leave, or at least to ensure that they are prepared in case the situation deteriorates.

On Sept. 16, , the government went ahead with its planned opening of schools. But many Damascus residents said they would not dare send their children; one activist said school attendance in the city was little more than 50% and was much lower in the suburbs.

Many schools recently housed displaced residents fleeing other parts of the city and suburbs. Those people have now had to move to other public buildings or parks or return to their homes in threatened areas.

The government’s tactics are similar to those it employed during months of brief protests last year, when blood and other signs of violence were immediately washed away and antigovernment fliers gathered up by loyalistshabiha militiamen.

“In Damascus it is a tactical war,” said Lena, who did not give her real last name because of security concern. “People are saying that Damascus is no longer active after the Damascus Volcano. It is active but it is underground, because the security situation has gotten much worse and there is no other way.”

“The level of calculation has risen,” said Moaz, a fellow activist.

“That and the caution,” Lena added.

Government security buildings and heavily guarded ministries throughout the city are surrounded by beefed-up protection. Concrete barriers block off entrances and, in some cases, entire streets.

Nevertheless, rebels said they had managed to enter a school used by government forces Tuesday and detonate nine explosive devices in the building and fuel barrels underneath it. The attack was timed to coincide with a weekly political training meeting, said Nabil al Amir, a spokesman for the Ahfad al Rasul brigade of the Free Syrian Army. He said the attack was in retaliation for the continued killing of civilians across the country.

The government played down the attack. An official news report said seven people were wounded and that damage was minor.

Dozens of new checkpoints in Damascus stall traffic and disrupt residents’ movements as a way demonstrating government strength. The fear of security officers and spies is such that activists worry about an act as innocuous as standing in the street in one spot for more than a few minutes.

26/09/12

A Free Syrian Army fighter cries near the body of his comrade in front of Dar El Shifa hospital in Aleppo, Syria, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2012. (AP Photo/Manu Brabo)

BEIRUT, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Opposition activists said security forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad killed more than 40 people in a small town outside Damascus on Wednesday, calling it a massacre.

The 18-month-old uprising against Assad’s rule has descended into civil war of late and grown increasingly bloody.

Video published by activists showed rows of bloodied corpses wrapped in blankets. The victims shown on camera appeared to be male, from 20-year-olds to elderly men.

“A massacre in the Dhiyabia area,” says the voice of an activist in one video. “God damn you, Bashar. The bodies are in the dozens. Look, Muslims, look what this dictator is doing.”

In one of the videos uploaded by activists, some of the men appeared to have been shot in the forehead, face or neck.

The assailants may have been rounding up potential rebel fighters. Some activists said women and children were also among the dead, but there was no footage of them available.

Activists said the number of killed in the town of al-Dhiyabia, southeast of the capital, might reach as high as 107. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group with a network of activists across the country, said it could only confirm 40 dead.

The activists’ reports could not be verified because the Damascus government restricts foreign media access in Syria.

The Observatory says more than 30,000 people have been killed in the year and half of violence. More than 7,000 of those were soldiers, it said, while the rest were civilians, gunmen and army defectors. (Reporting by Erika Solomon; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

26/09/12

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Khalid, 15, said he was hung by his arms from the ceiling of his own school building in Syria and beaten senseless. Wael said he saw a 6-year-old starved and beaten to death, “tortured more than anyone else in the room”.

The first-person accounts come from interviews with refugees who have fled the Syrian conflict conducted by the British-based charity Save the Children and published on Tuesday.

The report did not say who had abused the children, but a spokesman for Save the Children said some had heard their parents blaming government forces for the attacks.

U.N. investigators say Syrian government forces have committed human rights violations “on an alarming scale”, but have also listed multiple killings and kidnappings by armed rebels trying to topple President Bashar al-Assad.

The children that Save the Children spoke to in refugee camps in neighboring countries said they had witnessed massacres and seen family members killed during the 18-month-old conflict.

“I knew a boy called Ala’a. He was only 6 years old. He didn’t understand what was happening. His dad was told that this child would die unless he gave himself up,” said Wael, 16, who like all the children interviewed was not identified by his full name or location.

“I’d say that 6-year-old boy was tortured more than anyone else in the room. He wasn’t given food or water for three days, and he was so weak he used to faint all the time,” Wael was quoted as saying. “He was beaten regularly. I watched him die. He only survived for three days and then he simply died.”

Opposition activists say 27,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Syria’s bloodshed. Many of the civilians died initially in attacks by security forces on peaceful protests. Others have been killed in government shelling or in crossfire during the ensuing civil war.

Khalid, 15, said he had been taken along with over a hundred others to his old school, which had been turned into a torture centre, and had his hands tied with plastic cord.

“They hung me up from the ceiling by my wrists, with my feet off the ground, then I was beaten. They wanted us to speak, to confess to something,” he said.

“I passed out from the severe pain of hanging like that, and from the beating. They took me down and threw cold water on my face to wake me up. Then they took turns stubbing out their cigarettes on me. Here, I have these scars.”

Omar, 11, described life under bombardment.

“One day I was playing with my brothers and my cousin. We were teasing her and she was upset. She left us and went to her house. That night, a shell destroyed my 9-year-old cousin’s house - the one we’d upset during the day. I regret that she died feeling sad,” he said.

Another interviewee, Munther, 11, said that he and several other children were standing outside his school when bullets started whizzing by.

“A boy called Amjad was standing next to me. He was shot in the head. I didn’t realize at first that he was dead. He fell forward on his knees, in a praying position,” Munther said.

“Then I felt a terrible pain. I’d been shot too - in my neck,” he added, pointing to two scars.

Save the Children chief executive Justin Forsyth, who heard the reports first-hand, said the stories “need to be heard and documented so those responsible for these appalling crimes against children can be held to account”.

The charity urged the United Nations to increase its presence on the ground to enable it to document every crime.

(Reporting by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

26/09/12

PLEASE CLICK ON LINK BELOW TO VIEW THE SAVING THE CHILDREN VIDEO!

http://mcaf.ee/vgq9c

Over the course of 18 months of violent conflict, Syrian children have been the victim of unspeakably horrific crimes. Children as young as six have been detained and held sometimes for weeks, denied food and water, and tortured.

Many children remain inside Syria, unable to escape, experiencing and witnessing atrocities on a daily basis. Others have managed to flee across the border into Jordon, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq, and in the relative safety of the camps. Stories they have shared with Save the Children are contained in a report released called “Untold Atrocities”.

One child tells how he was captured and detained for five days, and that when he was taken to be interrogated, he was hung from the ceiling by his wrists and beaten until he passed out from the pain. Another says that he was handcuffed and tied to a wooden post with his arms above her head, and beaten for two days with the butt of a rifle, a horse-whip and sticks. He says he passed out but must have been left hanging there, because when he woke up he was still there.

A boy says he was detained in a cell with hundreds of other children, the youngest nine or 10, and that when people died their bodies were left in the cell to decompose.

Another tells how armed men came to his school and took away 50 children from grades one to seven, many of them as young as six, and tore out their fingernails.

It’s impossible to know exactly how many Syrian children have been made the victim of these horrific crimes, because access for aid agencies inside Syria is so limited. Of the refugee children who have spoken with Save the Children, almost all have either been the victim of or have witnessed horrific crimes. Most have seen family members killed. We fear that their stories represent just the tip of the iceberg.

Estimates of the total number of people killed in Syria range from 17,000 to 22,000. It’s impossible to know how many of these are children, but we can assume it to be a significant proportion. Of the 250,000 who have fled from Syria to neighbouring countries, it’s estimated that more than half are children.

Children who have been subjected to or witnessed this sort of brutality are at risk of long lasting psychological harm. Our staff in Jordan and Lebanon tell of children who refuse to speak, who cry when planes pass over head, who refuse to play with others, have vivid nightmares, or have begun wetting the bed. Many children say that they no longer feel like children. One child told us: “I am not young any more. I go to the bathroom, take a shower, and then sleep. That’s all.” Another said “I don’t think I’ll ever be OK again”.

Syrian refugee children have told us that they want people to know what’s happening to them. One child said that he would try any way he could “to let the whole world know what is actually happening in Syria.” That’s why we’ve chosen to tell their stories.

For most of us, what these children have experienced is beyond imagining. Similarly, it’s difficult to imagine how their parents will somehow find a way to live with the knowledge of the savage brutality that their children have had to endure.

What we do know is that what these children are experiencing must not be tolerated. We know also that these children and their parents feel abandoned. One child told Save the Children that “if there was even 1 per cent of humanity in the world, this wouldn’t happen.” He couldn’t understand how “no one is helping us and we’re dying”.

It’s time for world leaders to step up and show Syria’s children that that 1 per cent of humanity in the world does exist - by calling upon parties to the conflict to cease violations of children’s rights and for perpetrators to be held to account, and for Security Council resolutions to be adhered to, and by supporting the UN to ensure that these unspeakably horrific violations of children’s rights are systematically documented. Some limited monitoring and reporting is taking place but it’s nothing like on the scale required. Unless adequate monitoring and reporting is assured, we risk giving the impression that these crimes will be tolerated.

In the words of one Syrian refugee who spoke with Save the Children, “world leaders have watched this for over a year and a half. Now is the time for action.”

Rebecca Barber is Humanitarian Policy & Advocacy Advisor for Save the Children

26/09/12

Reuters/Reuters - The body of a dead civilian lies on a stretcher on a street after an air-strike in Aleppo’s al-Shaar district September 23, 2012. REUTERS/Zain Karam