News

Our hearts  go to all those who mourn the victims of the most recent terror attacks. Madam President, I thank the UK Presidency for convening this Security Council briefing on the humanitarian situation in Syria. I also thank all briefers for their remarks which speak in unvarnished language to the harrowing consequences of the nearly five years of brutal war on the people of Syria.  As we consider the positive signals emerging from Vienna, all they have is more bloodshed and carnage.      

Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey are approaching a dangerous saturation point as refugees continue to spill out of Syria. While criminals, smugglers, and traffickers are earning millions from tragedy, refugees are dying, literally, to escape.

According to reports by the Syrian Network for Human Rights, government forces dropped 1 438 barrel bombs across Syria in the month of October. Indiscriminate attacks against civilians Sieges and starvation as still used as weapons of war continue from all sides of the conflict.

Dae’sh butchers keep committing gruesome atrocities, such as public executions, stonings, beheadings, rapes and forced impregnations as they strengthen and expand their terrorist reach. Because of them, the unthinkable is happening in the 21st century: slave markets are up and running again, with women and girls paraded and sold like cattle.

Humanitarian access remains a huge problem, due to insecurity as well as artificial administrative hurdles. Administrative and visa procedures continue to delay, and limit the delivery of assistance by UN agencies and their partners, including humanitarian NGOs. It is immoral and criminal to meddle with access request for humanitarian convoys. Every minute counts. Every day means more lives lost.

All those acts constitute blatant violations of the provisions contained in UNSC res 2139 and the subsequent resolutions. The Council’s inability to enforce its own resolutions in the face of the biggest humanitarian crisis of this century undermines its relevance and credibility.

The Council should use all the tools at its disposal to ensure that the parties to this conflict allow rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access for UN humanitarian agencies and their implementing partners, including across conflict lines. We need to increase and expand access to the millions of people  living in all hard-to-reach areas, also in view of the coming winter which will further aggravate the immense suffering of the people in need.

Madam President,

The ongoing conflict has deprived the Syrian people of even the basic medical care. Physicians For Human Rights documented 307 attacks on medical facilities and the deaths of 670 medical personnel in Syria since the start of the conflict in March 2011 through the end of August 2015, with Syrian forces responsible for 90 per cent of these attacks. Concerns about the safety and security of humanitarian personnel too remain high in all parts of Syria, with UN vehicles attacked and humanitarian workers kidnapped and killed.

We condemn the continued attacks on healthcare and humanitarian facilities, transportation and personnel and reiterate that they hold a special protected status under international humanitarian law which must be respected at all circumstances. Such attacks may constitute war crimes and have to be taken most seriously.

Impunity runs rampant in Syria. A much needed referral of the country’s situation to the ICC was blocked by a veto last year, one of the four that allowed this crisis to deepen and expand by protecting the perpetrators, not the victims of crimes. UNSG recently called again to refer Syria to the ICC. We support that call and urge the international community not to let accountability become yet another victim of Syria’s war.

We commend the work done by the Commission of Inquiry and human rights organisations to register the atrocities and human rights violations happening in Syria and urge them to continue their important work with a hope that one day, hopefully sooner than later, these testimonies will help to bring the perpetrators to account.

Madam President,

Syria remains one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a child - and a veritable hell to be born a girl. 7.5 mln Syrian children have lost their parents, their homes and their schools; have suffered immense emotional and physical traumas. According to UNHCR, more than 140,000 Syrian children are stateless.

What future do they have – illiterate, orphaned, malnourished and maimed? What future does a country have where its entire next generation is a lost generation?  We applaud all those who shine a light on the plight of Syria’s children and do their best to provide them with protection, support and sustenance. They too deserve justice.

Those children don’t have the luxury of waiting for Geneva, Vienna or any other format to succeed. By then, many of them will have been exchanged for food, recruited and forces to kill, or will have succumbed to the shellings, the aerial attacks and the barrel bombs. This Council should at least act on the barrel bombs to protect those children and the remaining civilian population. 

Madam President,

To conclude, let me reiterate our long standing position that there is no military solution to this conflict. The sides must choose the negotiation table over violence and proceed on the basis of the Geneva Communique of 2012, building on the tiny glimmer of hope that Vienna now seems to offer.

But that road will be long and full of hurdles. It will require time which the people of Syria don’t have.  This Council must do all within its power to make sure that those for whom the peace is being designed will see it-alive.

I thank you.