A/HRC/RES/40/17 well as on medical units, personnel, patients and transport and personnel involved in humanitarian assistance; 12. Expresses deep concern about the human rights situation and humanitarian access throughout the Syrian Arab Republic, particularly in areas that have come under the control of the Syrian authorities, and urges them and their allies to ensure unimpeded and sustained humanitarian access and respect for international human rights law and international humanitarian law; 13. Expresses its profound concern at the findings of the Commission of Inquiry that sexual and gender-based violence against women, girls, men and boys has been a persistent issue in the Syrian Arab Republic since the uprising in 2011, and that women and girls have been disproportionately affected and victimized on multiple grounds; 14. Notes the findings of the Commission of Inquiry that such acts of sexual and gender-based violence were committed most commonly by Syrian authorities and associated militia, as well as by the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Daesh), that they represent a widespread and systematic attack directed against the civilian population, amounting to crimes against humanity, and that such acts constitute the war crimes of rape and other forms of sexual violence, including torture and outrages upon personal dignity; 15. Strongly condemns all acts of sexual and gender-based violence and abuse, calls for immediate medical and psychosocial support to be provided to all survivors of such crimes and for every effort to be made to ensure justice for those who have suffered as a result of such crimes, and urges all parties to the conflict to respect and protect women’s and girls’ full enjoyment of human rights and to heed the recommendations made by the Commission of Inquiry; 16. Also strongly condemns the continued widespread practices of enforced disappearance and arbitrary detention, notably widespread in areas where the Syrian authorities retook control in 2018, and notes that the Commission of Inquiry has highlighted that the arbitrary detention of tens of thousands of individuals represents an urgent and largescale crisis of human rights protection, and also strongly condemns the use of sexual violence, torture and ill-treatment, particularly in detention facilities run by the Syrian authorities, including those acts referenced by the Commission of Inquiry in its reports and those depicted in the evidence presented by “Caesar” in January 2014, and recalls that such acts may constitute violations and abuses of international human rights law or violations of international humanitarian law; 17. Further strongly condemns the reported killing of detainees in Syrian Military Intelligence facilities, in particular in the Mezzeh airport detention facility, and Military Security Branches 215, 227, 235, 248 and 291, and the reported killing of detainees in military hospitals, including Tishreen and Harasta, and expresses deep concern at reports of mass executions of prisoners at the Saydnaya penitentiary complex as well as reports that the Syrian authorities used a crematorium to conceal the mass killings; 18. Expresses deep concern about the number of deaths among individuals detained by the Syrian authorities, as evidenced by their issuing of thousands of death notifications, which provides further indication of systematic violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, and urges them to provide families with death certificates and the remains of their relatives whose fate has been disclosed, including those who have been summarily executed, to take all appropriate measures immediately to protect the lives and rights of all persons currently detained or unaccounted for, and to clarify the fate of those who remain missing or are still in custody; 19. Notes the continued functioning of the Working Group on the release of detainees/abductees, the handover of bodies and the identification of missing persons, composed of Turkey, the Russian Federation and the Islamic Republic of Iran, as well as the United Nations, positively notes reports of the simultaneous release, facilitated by the Working Group, of detainees by the conflicting parties on 24 November 2018 and 12 February 2019, underlines the need for further concrete steps forward on this issue, and reiterates that all parties to the conflict must abide by their obligations under international humanitarian law and international human rights law, as applicable; 4