The number of besieged Syrians has more than doubled over the past year to nearly one million, the United Nations aid chief told the Security Council on Nov. 21, as the United States named 13 Syrian military commanders it accused of killing civilians.
Some 850,000 of those people are besieged by government forces, the United Nations said, while the rest are trapped by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants and other armed groups.
“There is nothing subtle or complicated about the practice of besiegement. Civilians are being isolated, starved, bombed and denied medical attention and humanitarian assistance in order to force them to submit or flee,” U.N. aid chief Stephen O’Brien told the 15-member council during a monthly briefing.
O’Brien again urged strong action from the Security Council to back its resolutions calling for an end to attacks on civilians, humanitarian aid access and a lifting of sieges.
“Without strong backing from each of you, red lines will be crossed again and again; international humanitarian law will be trampled on; war crimes will be committed. And until there is action by you, there will be no accountability,” O’Brien said.
The council has been divided over how to end the nearly six-year war, with Syrian ally Russia, backed by China, protecting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from council action by vetoing several resolutions, including a bid to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, named 13 Syrian military commanders she said had been involved in killing and injuring civilians since 2011 through air and ground assaults, and detaining and torturing civilians.
“The United States will not let those who have commanded units involved in these actions hide anonymously behind the facade of the Assad regime,” Power told the council.
“Those behind such attacks must know that we and the international community are watching their actions, documenting their abuses, and one day, they will be held accountable,” she said.
However, Russian Deputy U.N. Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov accused Power of being hypocritical by not naming militants for killing civilians, and criticized her for naming the Syrian military commanders.
“You forgot even about your own golden standard of the presumption of innocence,” Safronkov told the Security Council. “This is something that can only be decided by legal proceedings. This is something that is elementary.”
Moscow accuses UN envoy of ‘sabotaging’ Syria resolution
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Nov. 22 accused the U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura of “sabotaging” a resolution backing peace talks between the regime and opposition.
“The United Nations in the form of its special representative Staffan de Mistura has been sabotaging the resolution for more than six months,” Lavrov said in televised remarks while on a visit to Minsk.
The resolution calls for “holding inclusive Syrian talks without preconditions,” Lavrov said.
“It seems there is no other way except for the patriotic opposition and the government to take the initiative into their own hands and organize Syrian dialogue,” he said.
U.N. Security Council Resolution 2254 adopted in December 2015 proposed the establishment of a body to head the political transition.
But it has been plagued by disagreements over the fate of al-Assad, whom the Syrian opposition does not want to see in any future role.