Kuwait’s UN envoy vehemently deplores Syria air strikes
Two-thirds of Security Council ask UN chief for Syria hospital attacks inquiry
NEW YORK: A Kuwaiti diplomat strongly condemned air strikes in Syria’s northwestern Idlib region that deliberately targeted civilians while leaving infrastructure in tatters. Kuwait’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Ambassador Mansour Al-Otaibi made the remarks on behalf of his country, alongside Belgium and Germany, during a UN Security Council session dedicated to the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Syria. He strongly urged all parties to take the measures needed to protect innocent civilians and shield the infrastructure from the ongoing aerial bombardments.
Two-thirds of the United Nations Security Council including the United States, Britain and France - asked Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday to investigate attacks on UN-supported medical facilities in northwest Syria, diplomats said. Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s forces, backed by Russia, began an offensive on the last major insurgent stronghold three months ago that the United Nations says has killed at least 450 civilians and displaced more than 440,000 people.
Britain, France, the United States, Germany, Belgium, Peru, Poland, Kuwait, Dominican Republic and Indonesia delivered a demarche - a formal diplomatic petition - to Guterres over the lack of an inquiry into attacks on UNsupported facilities. “At least fourteen UN-supported facilities on the list of deconflicted facilities have been damaged or destroyed in northwest Syria since the end of April,” they told Guterres, according to the agreed request. “We therefore respectfully request that you consider launching an internal UN investigation into attacks that have damaged or destroyed UN-supported facilities in northwest Syria and report back promptly,” they said.
They noted that in 2016 former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had used his discretionary power to open an inquiry into an attack on a Syrian Arab Red Crescent humanitarian convoy in Aleppo. Guterres’ spokesman Farhan Haq confirmed representatives of 10 member states had met with the secretary-general. “We will consider their request,” Haq said.
Hospitals under attack
While the United Nations has shared the locations of humanitarian facilities with the parties to the conflict, UN aid chief Mark Lowcock has told the Security Council that dozens of healthcare facilities have been struck since April. “Is that information used as it’s intended, to protect facilities ... or is it being used to target facilities?” Lowcock said to reporters on Tuesday after briefing the council for the seventh time since the Syrian government offensive began.
The 10 members of the Security Council also called on Guterres to investigate why the so-called deconfliction mechanism had failed to deter attacks. Russia and Syria have said their forces are not targeting civilians or civilian infrastructure and questioned the sources used by the United Nations to verify attacks on health centers.
In a July 16 letter to Guterres and the Security Council, Syrian UN Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari said some 119 hospital and health care centers “have been out of commission since being taken over by terrorist groups” and “no longer serve their original purpose and cannot be considered hospitals, health-care centers or even ‘civilian objects’ under humanitarian law.”
Children killed Addressing Syria’s warring parties, Ambassador Otaibi said UN Security Council resolutions should be respected and abided by, particularly ones dealing with the protection of medical facilities and schools. Citing UN reports, he said a large number of children had been killed in the Syrian city of Idlib during the last month, while the infrastructure in the area has been destroyed, the Kuwaiti diplomat added. He emphasized that Syria’s eight-year civil war can only be resolved through a political solution, saying military action will never be the answer to the misery of “three million people, a quarter of whom are children,” crammed into the northwestern province. “The people of Syria have witnessed the most despicable crimes as identified by international law,” he lamented, saying those responsible for these heinous deeds should be held accountable and face swift justice. On the return of Syrian refugees, he maintained that it should only be done “securely and voluntarily,” pointing out that tens of thousands of Syrians remain either detained or missing.
An array of insurgents have a foothold in northwestern Syria. The most powerful is the jihadist Tahrir al-Sham, the latest incarnation of the former Nusra Front which was part of Al-Qaeda until 2016. British UN Ambassador Karen Pierce told the Security Council on Tuesday that Ja’afari’s letter was an admission of Syrian government attacks on hospitals. “That is a war crime and it deserves the utmost, deep investigation so that those units responsible, those military commanders responsible, and the politicians who give them their instructions, can be brought to justice,” she said. — Agencies