Syria Asks UN to Question Armed Terrorist Groups’ Supporters about Crimes against Children

DAMASCUS, (ST)_Syria has urged the international community to fulfill its role in fighting terrorism and to shoulder responsibility for supporters of the armed terrorist groups –operating in the country- for the massacres being perpetrated daily against citizens nationwide.

Foreign and Expatriates Ministry made the call in a letter sent on Thursday to the UN Security Council, according to the official news agency.

The letter said that the armed groups randomly fire dozens of mortar shells on Syrian cities, especially on the capital [Damascus] to kill innocent citizens and scare them. It included details on the mortar attacks and the number of casualties.

At least 18 citizens, mostly school students, were martyred and 60 others wounded in mortar attacks targeting schools and residential areas in provinces of Damascus and its countryside and Aleppo.

The mortar attacks which were carried out by foreign-backed terrorists this month (between November 6 -11) triggered the stop of study in the targeted schools for three days -as of yesterday-the letter said.

It underscored that the school students, who survived after their schools were attacked, are suffering from psychological shocks as they saw their classmates stained with blood.

‘Systematic crimes’

On the other hand, the ministry noted another type of crimes being perpetrated by the armed terrorists groups through recruiting children and training them to carry out killing and abducting them to blackmail their families as well as maiming them.

“The armed terrorist groups occupy schools and turn them into torture centers,” the letter said, asserting that the terrorist groups have systematically worked to prevent students from going to schools since last year.

“They [terrorists] have distributed leaflets and planted explosive devices at schools and hindered arrival of the Syrian curriculum to schools in some areas to realize their goals,” the letter added.

It blamed the spread of Polio in the eastern Der Ezzour province on the armed terrorist groups that impeded vaccination campaign there.

Serious steps ‘a must’

The ministry appealed to the United Nations Security Council, The UN General Secretariat, Human Rights Council, the UNICEF, and the UNESCO to fulfill their duties and to lambaste the terrorist organizations’ brutal acts as well as to adopt serious steps in order to obliterate terrorism resources.

It stressed that Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and other countries support terrorists- came from more than 80 countries to implement the agenda of al-Qaeda-linked groups – by all means.  

Basma Qaddour