A/HRC/25/65
Non-State armed groups, named in the report, committed war crimes, including
murder, execution without due process, torture, hostage-taking, violations of international
humanitarian law tantamount to enforced disappearance, rape and sexual violence,
recruiting and using children in hostilities, attacking protected objects and forcibly
displacing civilians. Medical and religious personnel and journalists were targeted. Armed
groups besieged and indiscriminately shelled civilian neighbourhoods, in some instances
spreading terror among civilians through the use of car bombings in civilian areas. In AlRaqqah, the widespread detention of civilians and their systematic torture by identified
armed groups amounted to a crime against humanity. Non-State armed groups perpetrated
massacres.
Chemical weapons, specifically sarin, were found to have been used in multiple
incidents during the conflict. In no incident was the commission’s evidentiary threshold
met with respect to the perpetrator.
States that exert influence on the parties in the Syrian Arab Republic must act to
ensure that these parties comply with the rules of international humanitarian law. The
Security Council bears responsibility for allowing the warring parties to violate these rules
with impunity.
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