"Given climate change, much of the Middle East is highly vulnerable to the impacts of drought, which in portions of the region will become more frequent, last longer and will be more severe," he said. Droughts occur regularly in the region and in Syria, with its naturally semi-arid climate, but are worsened by the present environmental crisis, he said.
Gorelick said that the outcomes of his work in Jordan may be used to evaluate water scarcity in other Middle Eastern countries, such as Syria. Steven Gorelick is a senior fellow at Stanford University's Woods Institute for the Environment and director of its Global Freshwater Initiative, a program that aims to increase freshwater supplies in countries threatened by climate change, such as Jordan. The severity of the situation in Syria, say some experts, is largely attributed to the impact of climate change in the region.įILE - The effects of drought are seen around the Doueisat dam outside the town of al-Diriyah in Syria's northern Idlib province, Nov. Less water flowing into the river from upstream, accompanied by irregular and reduced rainfall and higher-than-average temperatures, has created drought-like conditions in the region, according to the September U.N. The reasons are both environmental and man-made.Īccording to the U.N.'s September 9 action plan to address the water crisis, 5.5 million Syrians' access to a critical water supply, the Euphrates River, is in jeopardy because of water levels that have been dwindling since January. The panel was established by the Human Rights Council in 2011 to provide continuing reports on human rights violations in the Syrian conflict.With the Syrian civil war in its 10th year and more than half the country's population forcibly displaced by conflict, millions of Syrians face a new crisis: insufficient access to safe water that has increased food insecurity, diminished livelihoods and spurred further migration in search of resources.Īccording to an October 21 U.N Security Council report, people in Syria's north and northeastern regions remain unable to reliably access sufficient supplies of safe water. The commission of inquiry is made up of three independent experts, Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro a Brazilian legal scholar, Karen Koning AbuZayd, a veteran American UN official, and an Egyptian human rights expert, Hanny Megally. It relies on the government of Bashar al-Assad and its Russian backers to distribute humanitarian relief around much of the country. While frequently condemning daily atrocities in Syria, the UN usually seeks to avoid naming those responsible. Russia has denied responsibility for the mass killing of civilians in Syria, insisting its air campaign in support of the Damascus regime is solely targeted against terrorist groups. “In both incidents, the Russian Air Force did not direct the attacks at a specific military objective, amounting to the war crime of launching indiscriminate attacks in civilian areas.” “Based on the evidence available, including witness testimonies, video footage, data imagery as well as reports by flight spotters, flight communication intercepts and early warning observation reports, the commission has reasonable grounds to believe that a Russian aircraft participated in each incident described above,” the report said. That attack killed 20 people, including eight women and six children, and injured 40 others. The second attack investigated was the 16 August bombing of a compound for displaced civilians standing alone in fields just outside Haas in southern Idlib governorate. Forty-three civilians, including four children, were killed and at least 109 injured. The commission report describes the attack as a “double tap” air strike, in which a second wave of bombing hit the same target when rescue workers were on the site.
The operational art of war iv syrian civil war series#
The first incident was a series of air strikes on a market place in Ma’arrat al-Nu’man, a densely populated area 33 km south of Idlib city, on 22 July. The panel has in the past suggested possible Russian responsibility for war crimes, but this is the first time it has found proof of Moscow’s culpability. The commission focused on two incidents in which it found substantial evidence that Russian aircraft were directly involved in the bombing of civilian areas.
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