U.N. war crimes investigators say Syria is still unsafe for the return of refugees a decade after its conflict began, documenting worsening violence and rights violations including arbitrary detention by government forces.
The U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria said the overall situation was increasingly bleak, noting hostilities in several areas of the fractured country, its collapsing economy, drying riverbeds and increased attacks by Islamic State militants.
Releasing its 24th report the Chair of the Commission, Paulo Pinheiro said, One decade in, the parties to the conflict continue to perpetrate war crimes and crimes against humanity and infringing the basic human rights of Syrians.
He said the Commission has continued to document not only torture and sexual violence in detention but also custodial deaths and enforced disappearances.
The war, which spiraled out of an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s rule, sparked the world’s biggest refugee crisis. Syria’s neighbors host 5.6 million refugees, while European countries are hosting more than one million.
Covering the year to the end of June, the report also noted increased hostilities in the northwest, saying markets, residential areas and medical facilities had been struck from the air and ground, “often indiscriminately, causing numerous civilian casualties.”
At least 243 people were killed or maimed in seven car bomb attacks in the rebel-held towns of Afrin and Ras al-Ain north of Aleppo, though the full toll was considerably higher, it said.
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