Crying Out for Justice: the Continued Plight of Syrian Civilians
No
one thought much of the group of men who appeared to be part of the
Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), as they milled about the town
of Kobane in Aleppo Governorate in the early morning hours on 25 June.
No one had reason to worry, until the men started shouting and shooting. “You are Kafirs (infidels)!” the men yelled at local people.
“And (then) they just shot randomly,” a young male law student
interviewed by the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria recalled. “I know
more than 90 civilians, many of them women, children, and elderly
persons, were killed in the attack. I’m sure there were more.”
The men were undercover so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham
(ISIS) fighters. They spread out across the town of Kobane, and targeted
civilians during two days of sustained attacks. This description of the
attack was one of the hundreds of eyewitness testimonies relied upon by
the Commission for its latest report.
In its tenth report,
presented to the Human Rights Council, the Commission focused on the
impact the conflict is having on specifically affected groups and
communities, including women, children, religious minorities, the
besieged, human rights defenders and lawyers, journalists, and
academics.
