Human Rights Watch Urges US-Led Coalition to Respect Human Rights, Protect Civilians in Raqqa

BEIRUT – The United States-led coalition, the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and other local armed groups should make protecting civilians and respect for human rights a priority in their offensive allegedly to retake Raqqa from the so-called Islamic State (also known as ISIS), Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday. The offensive was announced on June 6, 2017.

On June 9, 2017, the US-led coalition acknowledged using the internationally banned White Phosphorus bombs in its strikes in Syria’s Raqqa. A day earlier, the coalition carried out 25 raids on residential neighborhoods in the Syrian city of Raqqa and in several of which it used the internationally white phosphorus rounds, according to social media activists. The airstrikes led to the martyrdom of 17 people including 12 in a raid on an internet Café in al-Jazara area near the Euphrates.

The coalition, which has  been carrying out airstrikes without any authorization from the Syrian government or a UN mandate, has committed tens of massacres in Raqqa, Hassaka, Deir Ezzour and Aleppo countryside under the pretext of fighting Daesh inside Syria. Hundreds of civilians were victims of the coalition’s airstrikes.

Key human rights priorities for anti-ISIS forces should include: taking all feasible precautions to avoid civilian casualties and investigating unlawful strikes; ensuring that no child soldiers participate in the military operation; respecting detainee rights; providing safe passage to fleeing civilians and providing sufficient support to displaced people; and increasing efforts to survey and clear landmines and explosive remnants of war.

 Lama Fakih, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said that the “coalition members and local forces should demonstrate concretely that the lives and rights of the hundreds of thousands of civilians in Raqqa are a parallel priority in the offensive.

Up to 400,000 civilians are estimated to remain in Raqqa governorate and 160,000-200,000 in the city of Raqqa, which ISIS captured in January 2014. Human Rights Watch staff last visited the city in April 2013.

Since its establishment in August 2014, the US has been leading an international coalition under the pretext of fighting Daesh terror organization in Syria and Iraq. It carried out thousands of airstrikes, but failed to stop the expansion of the takfiri organization or achieve any gains on ground because of its non seriousness about fighting terrorism and because of the lack of coordination with the governments of the two countries.

H.M