A/HRC/19/69
Government also withheld fuel rations and the electricity supply to punish communities and
families whose members had participated in anti-Government demonstrations.
74.
The Syrian Arab Red Crescent has provided humanitarian relief to part of the
affected population in an increasingly difficult environment. According to the International
Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the Secretary-General of the Syrian
Arab Red Crescent, Dr. Abd-al-Razzaq Jbeiro, was shot and killed on 25 January 2012 on
the main Aleppo–Damascus highway while traveling in a vehicle clearly marked with the
Red Crescent emblem.
75.
Local coordination committees and individual Syrians have established community
support mechanisms. International humanitarian actors have not been given the direct
humanitarian access necessary to assess and address comprehensively the basic
humanitarian needs that have arisen since March 2011.
76.
The Government provided information on attacks by armed groups on medical
facilities. Between 15 March 2011 and 9 February 2012, the Government counted 17
attacks on hospitals and 48 on medical centres. A total of 15 medical staff members were
killed, 27 were injured and 119 medical vehicles damaged.
77.
The commission documented several cases in which injured patients at State
hospitals were forced to falsely state on camera that their injuries had resulted from attacks
by armed groups.
E.
Violations of children’s rights
78.
As the violence intensified, children continued to be the victims. The State
authorities made no visible efforts to protect children‟s rights. According to a reliable
source, more than 500 children have been killed since March 2011, with the highest number
of children killed in December 2011 (80 deaths) and January 2012 (72). The largest group
were adolescents aged between 16 and 18 years. Snipers and other State forces killed or
wounded children, including those aged 10 years and younger. Many children were killed
when the army shelled residential areas in Homs and other cities in January and February
2012.
79.
Children continued to be arbitrarily arrested and tortured while in detention.
According to former detainees interviewed by the commission, children were treated in the
same way as adults, in blatant disregard of their age. They were kept in the same cells and
subject to the same methods of torture as adults.
80.
Injured children did not benefit from adequate medical treatment, given that
hospitals and health clinics were not safely accessible and because adults accompanying
them risked arrest. Many children are traumatized and need psychosocial support as a result
of witnessing atrocities.
81.
Children‟s education was disrupted by the violence, movement restrictions imposed
by the Government and opposition strikes and boycotts of schools. The commission also
received information on how the Government used teenage children to participate in staged
pro-Government demonstrations, leading many parents to keep them out of school when
demonstrations were scheduled.
82.
On 10 January 2012, the President announced that school enrolment had dropped by
half. He added that 30 teachers and university professors had been killed by antiGovernment armed groups, and that more than 1,000 schools had been vandalized, burned
or destroyed. The commission requested to be provided with details. On 15 February, the
Government provided the commission with information on physical damage and looting
concerning 866 schools in the governorates of Idlib (240 incidents), Dar‟a (151), Damascus
15
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