So far, non-international armed conflict in Syria has left an estimated 130,000 dead, 2.3 million refugees, and four million internally displaced. Ongoing conflict between the state and the opposition has turned into a civil war including different groups. Moreover, UN experts found through their investigations that chemical weapons had been used in five instances. The clearest case was the large-scale use of chemical weapon against civilians, including children, in the Ghouta area of Damascus on 21 August 2013, resulting in 1,300 dead. Recently, well-known war crime prosecutors and forensic experts have released a report based on almost 55,000 photographs that are direct evidence of systematic torture and killing by the Assad regime. These recent findings have ignited debates on the responsibility of the regime and war crime trials.
- Published in
- The Journal of Turkish Weekly
- Date
- January 21, 2014
- Language
- English