The United Nations Office at Geneva
Multimedia Newsroom
COI Syria Presser 12SEP2023
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45:48
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MP4
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3.1 GB
STORY: LATEST REPORT ON SYRIA - HRC COMMISSION OF INQUIRY
TRT: 04:31”
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 12 SEPT 2023, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
SHOTLIST
- Exterior wide shot, United Nations flag flying.
- Wide shot of panel and attendees at press briefing.
- SOUNDBITE: (ENGLISH) Paulo Pinheiro, Chair of the UN Syria Commission of Inquiry:“Despite diplomatic efforts to stabilize the situation in Syria, including through the readmission to the League of Arab States, Syrians continue to suffer from escalating fight and unrest along multiple front lines, extremely severe economic deterioration and persistent human rights violations and abuse.”
- Attendee at briefing.
- SOUNDBITE: (ENGLISH) Paulo Pinheiro, Chair of the UN Syria Commission of Inquiry: “Before Syria plunges deeper into this cycle of escalating violence and economic decline, the Commission would like to call on the key actors to respond to the dire needs of the civilian population.”
- Wide shot behind panel and attendees at press briefing.
- SOUNDBITE: (ENGLISH) Paulo Pinheiro, Chair of the UN Syria Commission of Inquiry: “The needs of the Syrian people have been systematically ignored by all the parties to this conflict during the last 12 years.”
- Wide shot of panel.
- SOUNDBITE: (ENGLISH) Hanny Magelly, Commissioner of the UN Syria Commission of Inquiry: “In central Syria, you know, we relate in the report to the experience of truffle gatherers, where we're seeing, again, an increase, you know, people are fighting over economic needs and survival and that results in violence, abductions. People are fighting over the, you know, the truffle marketing, so to speak, as an example of the country descending into that state of insecurity.”
- Photographer at briefing.
- SOUNDBITE: (ENGLISH) Paulo Pinheiro, Chair of the UN Syria Commission of Inquiry: “The Commission received multiple reports at that time of aid diversion, extortion and corruption and documented aid obstruction and interference in aid delivery in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake.
- Mid-view of attendees.
- SOUNDBITE: (ENGLISH) Paulo Pinheiro, Chair of the UN Syria Commission of Inquiry: “Following this devastating earthquake in February, the report documents how the government of the parties needless hindered life-saving aid and no party decided to answer our call for a cease-fire, and they continue shelling and they continue the war without any problems.”
- Photographer at briefing.
- SOUNDBITE: (ENGLISH) Paulo Pinheiro, Chair of the UN Syria Commission of Inquiry: “Family seeking clarity on the fate of detained, disappear and missing loved ones also receive the long-awaited welcome news following the establishment of the Independent Institution of Missing Persons in Syria by the General Assembly in June. I think if we have a positive news to share with you is precisely the establishment of this mechanism on the missing.”
- Wide view of briefing.
- SOUNDBITE: (ENGLISH) Hanny Magelly, Commissioner of the UN Syria Commission of Inquiry: “We are concerned that the rest of the world thinks that peace is returning to Syria or that the State may have won the war and that normalization is what's being talked about, etc. And yet, if you read our report, you'll see what we're seeing is a rise in unrest and a rise in conflict.”
- Wide of attendees at briefing
- SOUNDBITE: (ENGLISH) Paulo Pinheiro, Chair of the UN Syria Commission of Inquiry:“The 12 years of war in Syria are a monument to the failure of diplomacy and anything that can happen in terms of diplomacy, I think that is decisive, to end the war.”
- Mid-shot of attendees.
- Close-up of attendee.
- Mid-view from behind panel.
The “dire needs” of Syrians have been systematically ignored during the 12 years of conflict in the country, the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria warned on Tuesday. In its latest report, the United Nations Human Rights Council (OHCHR) body found that attacks on civilians, escalating fighting, economic decline and human rights violations persist, despite the country’s re-admission to the League of Arab States. The continued war in Syria is a “monument to the failure of diplomacy” said Paulo Pinheiro, Chair of the Commission of Inquiry. Speaking in Geneva at the launch of the report, Mr Pinheiro called on all parties to the conflict to cease the attacks on civilians following the recent wave of demonstrations. He urged the government in Damascus to respond positively to Syrians’ legitimate aspirations and rights before the country “plunges deeper into escalating violence and economic decline”.
The Commission Chairperson reiterated the need to review “unilateral coercive measures” imposed by the European Union, the United States, Canada, Australia and Switzerland from 2011 onwards, while calling for the easing of sanctions since the earthquake on 6 February 2023 to be maintained. He pointed out that at the time of the earthquake, the Commission received “multiple reports of aid diversion, extortion and corruption,” and documented “obstruction and interference in aid delivery” in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake.
The “Government and other parties needless hindered lifesaving aid” and “no party answered our call for a ceasefire. They continue shelling and they continue the war without any problems,” Mr Pinheiro said.
Citing the report, Mr Pinheiro explained that a single airstrike on 25 June killed or injured over 37 civilians at an outdoor vegetable market in Idlib in northwest Syria held by opposition forces that should have been observable to the military coordinators of the attack. He added that of the 15 attacks documented in the earthquake-affected area, several may constitute war crimes.
Commenting on the impact on ordinary Syrians, Commissioner Hanny Megally described the experience of truffle gatherers in central Syria: “We're seeing an increase, [in] people fighting over economic needs and survival and that results in violence, abductions.” People fighting over the truffle market is “an example of the country descending into that state of insecurity”, he said.
In a positive development, Mr. Pinheiro noted that families seeking clarity on the fate of detained, disappeared and missing loved ones had received “long-awaited welcome news” following the establishment of the Independent Institution on Missing Persons in Syria by the General Assembly in June. “I think if we have positive news to share with you, it is precisely the establishment of this mechanism on the missing,” he said.
Mr. Megally voiced concerns over beliefs that “peace is returning to Syria” and that
“Normalization is being talked about”. He warned that conversely, the report documents “a rise in unrest and a rise in conflict”.
Teleprompter
OK, Good afternoon.
Thank you all very much for joining us today for this press conference with the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic.
We have all three members of the Commission here with us today.
In the centre we have the Chairman, Professor Paulo Pinero, along with Hani Magali and on the on the far right, Lynn Welshman.
The Commissioners will be sharing with you the findings of their latest report and although this report is being made public today, it will be officially presented to the Human Rights Council at the end of next week on Friday 22nd of September.
As you may know, the Commission of Inquiry was established in 2011 to investigate all alleged violations of international human rights law in Syria.
The Human Rights Council has repeatedly extended the Commission's mandate since then, most recently until 31 March 2024.
I should note that we've just shared the press release with you on today, and so you should all have that in your inbox.
And now Professor Pinero will make opening statement.
And then, as usual, we'll go to the floor with questions.
So without further ado, I give the floor to Paulo.
Thank you.
I we are extremely happy to be in this new renovator room, but before I began to share with you some reflections about our report, the commissioners, Professor Lynn Honey and I like to extend our condolences to the families of the victims of the devastating effects of earthquake in Morocco and of the floodings in Libya.
Despite diplomatic Air Force to stabilise the situation in Syria, including through the readmission to the League of Arab States, Syrians continue to suffer from escalating fight and arrest along multiple front lines, extremely severe economic deterioration and persistent human rights relations and *****.
The UN Commission of Inquiry has warned about that in our latest report that we is being circulated today and that will present for the interactive dialogue in the Human Rights Council the 22nd of this month.
Before Syria plunges deeper into this cycle of scalating violence and economic decline, the Commission to like to call on the key actors to respond the dire needs of the civilian population.
As you know, the real interests, the needs of the Syrian people have been systematically ignored by all the parties to this conflict during the last 12 years.
Then I I think that is is very important to take in consideration the key points that we'll share with you now.
The Commission urges the government in Damascus to take heed and respond positively to the need to the needs being raised in several manifestations that happened during this month.
We also call for an urgent review by Member States of unilateral coercive measures being posted during all these years without any any result and their impact on ordinary Syrians and humanitarian actors, including due to over compliance of those measures.
They are necessary steps to be taken to ease sanctions in response to the earthquake, and this suspension of sanctions should be maintained.
Finally, the Commission urges the UN to review the efficacy of the delivery of international aid, including its methodology and frequency.
As you know, immediately after the earthquakes, we have found that the response effort to this disaster was characterised by failures that hindered the delivery of urgent aid to northwest Syria, implicating the Government of Syria and other parties to the conflict, as well as the international community and United Nations.
The Commission received multiple reports at that time of aid diversion, distortion and corruption and documented aid obstruction and interference in aid delivery in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake.
Following this following this devastating earthquakes in February, the reports documents how the government or the parties needless hindered life saving aid and no party decide to answer our our call for a ceasefire and they continue shelling and they continue the war without any any problems.
This was appalling that the victims suffer from the earthquakes but they continue suffering from the the armoured conflict in in Syria.
We are very, very depressed and said about this incapacity of implementing a effective ceasefire.
Recent weeks have also increased conflict in Greater Idlib, displacing thousands and in their Azur, killing dozens, as well as an outbreak of large scale protests clamouring for economic, social, civil and political rights in government control areas, notably in Suweta.
The Commission reiterated its call, as I did a minute ago, for the release of all persons arbitrarily detained in Syria and for independent monitors to have access to all places of detention.
So we are repeating as a mantra this appeal for the last 11 years without any effect.
We take we have taken note also as we do of anything that is changed in terms of legislation of the structure of the Government in the Arab Republic of Syria that Legislative Decree 32, issued on 3rd the September 2023 transfer all cases under the restriction of military field cuts to the ordinary military justice system.
In any case, even if we precisely because we have documented extended violations of due process of law and unlawful conditions of detention for individuals refers to the military field cuts that will substitute the the the the fuel the military fueled cuts, then we can for the moment, we don't know exactly what will be the consequence of this this change in the process of judging the judging cases.
In June, the self administration in the North East express its readiness to try an estimated 2000 such foreign men and was locally a massive caseload.
This raised concerns giving the lack of compliance with fair trial standards in similar trials impasse of Syrian suspects.
We we needed to follow this very closely.
And of course, the responsibility for that is not only of the of the self administration in that territory, but all the parts of the conflict that contributed for what is happening there has they have also their part of responsibility.
A family seeking clarity on the fate of detained, disappear and missing loved ones also received the long waited welcome news following the establishment of the independent institution or missing persons in Syria by the General Assembly in June.
I think if we have a positive news to share with you is precisely the establishing of this mechanism on the missing.
Why?
Because there is a urgent need of coordination of all the information that were collected by respectable organisations all over the region.
And then I think that at the time it does sometime the government, Syria will, we hope, will discover the advantages of cooperating with this mechanism to give a concrete response concerning what happened with those sort of 100,000 missing during this 12 years on fleet in Syria.
I, I will stop here and I will be delighted to, to react to any and to answer any question or any comment or any criticism.
We love criticism and then we'll be very happy to comment on that.
Thank you very much for your patience to hear hearing my presentation.
Thank you.
Thank you, Paolo.
So now we can open the floor to questions.
Do we have any in the room?
Please go ahead.
If you could just identify yourself and the state, your full name and the the organisation that you work for.
My name is Jeremy Launch, I'm working for the French public radio.
I was wondering if you had any comment on what's going on in Sweda.
You mentioned that earlier in your expose.
It seems like it's been 3 weeks now that we have protests in Sweda, protests that are not being crushed for now.
And I was wondering, do you fear that at some point we will see the regime reiterate what's been applying in, in Idlib and air strikes might end up the process in Sweda?
What's your, what's your, your, your feeling about what's going on and, and, and what does it say about the, the current situation in, in Syria?
Thank you.
Thank you for the, for the question.
You know, we're concerned that that the, the rest of the world thinks that peace is returning to Syria, that the state may have won the the war and that normalisation is what's being talked about, etcetera.
And and yet if you read our report, you'll see what we're seeing is a rise in unrest and a rise in conflict.
And Suede is an example of the people reacting to the plummeting economic situation, you know, 12 years of conflict and destruction.
And it's unique in in that area in that they have tried to stay very much out of the conflict.
They've not been so much involved in joining armed groups, etcetera, but even there they're feeling that with the and you know, what triggered it seems to have been, you know, a question around the subsidies being removed etcetera.
You know, people took to the streets to to complain.
But then as you're rightly saying, you know, the government response has been much more muted in this area.
Again, taking the history of the last 12 years into account.
But if you then look elsewhere in the country, we're seeing, I mean, even in the South we've we've been seeing assassinations continuing through the spirit of pro government and anti government individuals targeted assassinations.
And we even saw earlier in the year some air strikes by Syrian forces in the area, not related directly to the to this unrest.
But then you look elsewhere and you see the violence is continuing, if not being extended in, in the northwest.
The shelling has continued regardless, as Paulo say was saying of the earthquake.
Even in the last few days, we've been seeing a major uptick in in, in the air strikes and, and the shelling has continued throughout.
You know, we're seeing HTS beginning to use drones more than maybe we were seeing in the past.
And in central Syria, you know, we we relate in the report the experience of truffle gatherers where we're seeing again, an increase.
You know, people are fighting over economic needs and survival and that results in in violence, abductions.
People are fighting over, you know, the truffle, the truffle marketing, so to speak, as an example of the country descending into that state of insecurity.
If you look in the North East, we're we're seeing fighting within the NE.
You know, people have described it sometimes as as the Arab tribes versus the, the Kurdish authorities, but it's much more complicated than that.
And we're seeing within the Kurdish, the Kurdish movements themselves, You know, people are beginning to say we need better leadership.
We need to see improvements in the conditions we're seeing with the relationship with the with the Arabs and some of the biggest Arab tribes in in the North East.
People are saying we need to have more say in how the area is being run etcetera.
So everywhere you look, I think you're not seeing a return to normality.
You're seeing people are beginning to speak up more.
There is frustration that, you know, even with the Arab League bringing Syria back into the fold, so to speak, they're not seeing results on the ground that says the situation is improving.
And we're very concerned that, you know, the signals that people are running out of patience and and hence, you know, Paulo was pointing to urgent action that's needed.
One of the areas maybe around the delivery of humanitarian aid and other areas around the, the sanctions or the, the coercive measures that being applied in Syria and, and those need to be reviewed.
But obviously, the Syrian state itself needs to be listening now to what people are saying and trying to, to heed their call for, for better economic developments on the ground and, and a better way to be living in dignity.
And of course, on top of all of this, and I'm sorry I'm going on too long, but it all relates to your question.
You have to worry about the idea that Syrians can now be returning to Syria because Syria's become a safer place for return.
You know, the picture in our report is it's not getting any safer.
There are no jobs to come back to in Syria.
You know, the the buildings have been destroyed.
It'll take a bigger effort to really encourage people to voluntarily come back.
Thank you, honey.
Any more questions from the room?
OK.
All right, we'll take a couple online.
We have first Yuri from RIA Novosti.
Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my questions.
You mentioned in your report an American drone strike that killed a 60 year old civilian in Idlib.
Are you discussing with the USA the fact that their presence in Syria is illegal, just like their strikes without AUN mandate or without the government agreement?
Are you discussing with them the illegal occupation of the oil and gas fields in the northeast of Syria, which deprives the government and the Syrian population of their own natural resources?
And are you just talking about this matter with them?
Because we never heard nothing in the UN about that.
Thank you.
I'll start with that.
I'm sorry I wasn't, I didn't catch the very beginning of it.
So apologies if I don't cover precisely what the question was.
Is the question whether we are discussing with the US about their actions because we do send to them not for a battle and we ask them very specific questions about incidents that we document including some of their air strikes, including one very recently.
We did cover that one that that was appears to have been an elderly civilian who was killed.
I think this is the incident you're talking about and they have I think just got back to us on some of these.
But I'm afraid I haven't had time to review the answers they came in this morning.
So we do raise these issues with them on a regular basis and we do regularly review what our understanding is of the situation in TANF and of the situation on the oil resources and keep as close an eye on that as it's possible for us to do given our own lack of access.
Was there a part of that question that I've missed?
The legality of the presence of the US.
And Oh yes, the legality, some of that goes to charter issues, which we don't deal with.
The legality in terms of occupation.
We understand that the actual military base.
Is clearly under US control without the consent of the sovereign state of Syria, the area further around it with Marabara Thora, more or less keeping control of the population.
The resources there, we understand can't really be done without the presence of the US.
So we keep that in mind in terms of what that means in terms of their authority over that area and resources.
I think is that more or less where we are on that?
It's it's, it's a very complex legal situation, but clearly they are there without the consent of the sovereign state and we do raise that with them.
I mean, what we've tried to do is prioritise the conduct of the parties to the conflict in Syria and not get dragged down too much into the legalities of who's there doing what.
Because obviously the UN Security Council is the body that looks more of these issues and it relates to Zealand says the UN Charter.
And given the situation in Syria, we have so much to do trying to monitor and report on the conduct and the violations.
And we do that systematically across the board, including the member states that were involved in Syria, but also including Syrian non state actors and and the Syrian state itself.
Thank you.
Now we go to Muhammad from the Anadolo Agency in Turkey.
Thank you.
Thank you for taking my question, Sir.
Thank you for belief.
How do you evaluate the Piki or YP GS use of force against the Arab troops in their lands, killing many people and imposing their rule in their reserve?
Thank you so much.
What we've been doing is, as I've said earlier, is monitoring the conduct on the ground of the various parties.
So in in the North East, we've been focusing quite a bit on the Syrian Democratic Forces and we've reported there in the past and in this report on detentions, deaths in custody, torture.
Sometimes when we've raised these issues they've actually gone into investigations and detained people to investigate their conduct etcetera.
We've reported infighting and we've reported on fighting between the North East and the Northern Syrian and the Northwest.
So you will see in the report details I think that relate to all of that.
We've also been looking very much at the situation in our whole and the Rouge camps where we have I think 52,000 women, mainly women and children detained and and also the situation of the more than 10,000 suspected members or people who've had relations with the Islamic State who are also being held with the SDF.
So there's a lot we try to look at and report on.
And, you know, you'll see in this report, as in previous ones, where we have good evidence, we've been able to say that, you know, we think these crimes may have been committed and action needs to be taken.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Let's go to Lawrence Ciero from the Swiss News Agency.
Yes, thank you for taking my question.
First a follow up question to Hani Megali's response to Jeremy before.
So to what extent do you think that the war in Ukraine and now the conflict in Sudan gives more appetite for normalisation with the Syrian regime by some, by some countries?
And to what extent that appetite might give more impetus for the Syrian government to extend some some violences in some parts of the country.
That's the first question.
And then on the Russian air strike on June in on the on the market, what kind of military site?
Because you're mentioning that there was a military site.
What kind of military side was was that that they were trying to target?
And is that the reason you're not concluding that this air strike might have constituted an alleged war crime?
Thank you.
Thank you.
Good, good questions.
You know, we don't have a crystal ball to be able to say what's the impact of Ukraine, Sudan or elsewhere on, on what's going to happen in, in Syria.
But what we've tried to do is to say don't forget the the Syrian people.
So, for example, when the the League of Arab States had negotiations with Syria and brought Syria back into the League of Arab States and Syria then attended the summit, you know, our message was, you know, it's good that you're talking with the Syrian states.
Your focus has been on the drug trade.
Your focus has been on security.
Your focus has been on the refugees and returns.
But your focus should be on the human rights situation inside the country.
And we would like you to be focusing on issues like the detainees, an access for for the families to those in detention in Syria, like the issue of the missing and, and the disappeared and assisting in the efforts to try and find them.
Like the difficulties that the ID PS are facing, both in terms of humanitarian situations that they're living in, but also in terms of assistance with things like documentation, civil documentation, registration of of identity cards or marriages or births or deaths, etcetera, which are causing huge problems for people in the country.
And I could go on with a longer list or my colleagues can come in.
But really what we've said is if there are opportunities that arise from situations elsewhere, let's focus on what can be done to help the Syrian people on the ground and not just on political negotiations that that serve member states own needs vis A vis Syria.
On the Russian air strike in June, the our information is that the, the target seems to have been underground next to a residential building or a building that that also houses civilians and that the strike may have been successful in hitting the people underground.
And, and, you know, in that sense it was targeted.
The question then becomes, you know, was there collateral damage?
And it seems, you know, quite right.
It seems that there were civilians killed and others injured by, by the strike here.
Then it becomes a question of did the decision to carry out the strike take all feasible precautions into account?
And that's it always a difficult one to answer because it depends quite often on how important the people that they were targeting.
Where in under international law, you know, you can get into those types of questions which we don't have the enough information yet.
And This is why we've we've held back.
But actually on the issue of feasible precautions, you can also look at the the strike by the United States when they were going after what they thought was, was a a senior member of al Qaeda and that individual was killed.
It seems that it was not the person they were targeting, but but nonetheless there were civilian casualties.
And again, the question about feasible precautions needs to be raised.
You can look at a drone strike as we have in the report by Torquea, where again there was a target that we're aiming for and there were civilian casualties.
And again, we, you know, we report on the issues and we say we're concerned, you know, in all three cases, we're concerned that not enough precautions were being taken to protect civilians.
But we need more information to be able to pinpoint, you know, what lay behind.
We're not Privy to the decisions that lay behind those who gave the go ahead for these strikes to happen.
Thank you.
If I may come in briefly on that.
Also there was a strike in cover Susan Damascus in the 19th of February, which we suspected the Israeli air strike which killed 2 civilians and had very similar contours to the incident that had the attributed to Russian air strikes.
So we had two civilians killed in a secure complex in a residential area in Damascus as well as other people killed.
And again, we don't have sufficient response, responses really from anybody to the questions that we asked to make a determination on whether that is a war crime or not.
There was appears to have been the military objective.
We don't know who were the, who were the, who were the attacks and what their value was and so on.
And so there's a lot of things that we can't make a ruling on that.
And we are still looking at some of those and certainly the ones with the elderly civilian that was killed in the, in the US airstrike.
I would say on that we've had 24 reported Israeli airstrikes in Syria from the 1st of January till today or yesterday, I think, which is substantial.
And we can go into what damage they've done as well.
If you we've done some work on the landing strips, the the the necessary diversion of UN aid and delivery of aid after the earthquake and so on after that, as well as structural damage.
Thank you.
Now we'll take a question from Moussa ASI, if you could just identify the the news organisation you're working with?
Thanks.
Hi, I'm Musa from Al Mehdin TV based in Lebanon Arabic news channel.
My question is, do you think that the economic sanctions contribute to the this big economic crisis in Syria?
And please I limit my my question just about the sanctions, not other reasons for the, the economic crisis in Syria.
Thank you.
Thank you for your question.
I, I, I think that is extremely difficult now to establish what is the, the contribution of sanctions in terms of the dire economic situation in Syria.
That is what we we are not advisors of Member states that impose sanctions, but what to always in every bilateral meeting that we have with the main actors in Syria, we asking then you have to evaluate what is happening with what are the consequence of this sanctions.
Then I I think that our role to politician for the the the consequence of the sanctions.
What we see also is that we don't see any substantial change because sanctions during ten years and the international politics, you ask if something is not working, it's moment to change or to to examining what is is happening.
Of course that the the system of sanctions is very different depending of what member state or group of member states are imposing.
And I think that their their, their obligation is to to evaluate this consequence and also the consequence in terms that those institutions that try to to respect the limitations provoked by sanctions concerning humanitarian aid.
I think that perhaps we can be more precise in evaluating what is the negative contribution of sanctions for the delivery of of aid.
But in terms the overall economic situation in Syria, I think that is a is a is a difficult exercise and we are not in in condition of doing that.
We, as, as we have said in the report and I have said in my opening remarks, is the duty of the government to evaluate the effects of sanctions on the population in Syria because the elites are well protected.
That is a problem of sanctions imposed in the countries of the South.
The elites in these countries, they, they are, they are not affected, but any sanctions, economic sanctions affected the majority of the population, particularly the poor people.
This is so established that we don't need research to affirm that, but we need research to answer your question.
Thank you.
Musa, you had a follow up.
Yes, thank you.
Mr Pinero, thank you for your response.
But Madam Elena don't have the special report reporter of United Nations have many reports about the, the, the, the impact of sanctions and she will present a report maybe tomorrow in the Human Rights Council.
You don't have any idea about these reports.
Thank you.
I'm very close contact is one of my main attentions in terms of the colleague Zaporteur is precisely the the report of this eminent colleague and we are expecting with a **** anxiety what would be the the conclusions in news that she will share with us with all the the Human Rights Council.
I, I think, I think that she has a say about that.
And do we follow very much and I think in the, in the last 10 reports, we are always referring to the work of these special rapporteur.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Any more questions from online or in the room?
Yuri, you had a follow up.
Yeah.
My question is just to Mrs Wishman, if she can share with us the answers that the USA did made about the strike as you say that you receive it this morning.
So if you can share it with us, it will be really interesting.
Thank you.
As I said, unfortunately we received it just before we came to actually have no chance to study the whole letter, so I do apply.
In fact, I shouldn't have said that because I clearly set myself up for that.
But I have not anybody can help me from the floor.
I don't.
I have not had a chance to to study the responses.
I'm very sorry.
We you can get back to me when and when what is public, I will.
I will let you know.
I think in a in a nutshell, the message seemed to be it's still under investigation, but we want to read carefully the the full response.
They have started an internal investigation that's correct the US into that incident just.
I I'd like to say that we ask information not only to the United States, but for every part of the conflict.
They receive a very leverly our questions from the government after all other other parties in in the conflict.
And this informations are decisive for of course they are not the only source of our reports, the what the Member States inform, but for instance, in terms of the confirmation of some events that we have presented for examined of the Member States.
And this is extremely valuable and our expectation is that information share by the United States will be able to confirm several of the events that we have presented to to their examination.
Thank you.
So if we don't have any more questions, would any of the members of the Commission like to make any concluding remarks, any concluding remarks?
Can I jump in?
You jump and I don't do that and they I jump at the end.
I will jump very quickly to draw your attention again to our gender policy paper gender paper about the impact, the long term, the prolonged the impact the prolonged conflict in Syria on on women and girls and the continuing situation that tends to once you've had the report tends to get get sort of I taken off the wall and in situations where there was seems to be increasing clear EPS of conflict and as we've all heard today, increasing humanitarian crises and crises in aid.
We all know that it's the most vulnerable society which are women and children tend to again, go, go, go the most hungry.
So we have to bear in mind the need.
I mean, there's no end to this until of course, there's an end to the conflict.
But we also have to ask third party states to step up their assistance to find ways of getting humanitarian assistance into doing something to get to get more protection in and to ask the government of Syria to pay attention to these groups of people as well.
And I always say this at the last minute, to ask their party states to bring their nationals home from the camps in northeast Syria and to ensure accountability is done in their own completely capable national legal systems, which have many more capacities and resources than do the autonomous administration in in the northeast of Syria.
Who are really stuck with 100 with, with 10,000 alleged Daesh prisoners who, who who need to go back many of them and be tried in their own systems where they're not at risk of human rights violations or danger.
Thanks.
Maybe I'll I'll jump in.
Lina's covered good ground.
I will remind maybe everyone that the end of June the General Assembly passed a resolution that will lead to the creation of this new institution.
That is being set up to assist Syrians in the search for the missing and they disappeared in the country.
And it's very important that this institution gets the support and the funding to be able to do the job that's needed, which Paulo summarised a little bit in the beginning in terms of a coordinating role.
But in a way I think it it'll focus on 2 main areas.
One is the search itself and the and the assistance to, to find out what's happened to the missing and, and hopefully get answers to those who are no longer alive, but also those who are alive bring about the release or access by the families, etcetera.
But another important role will be assistance to the to the relatives and the families and, and those who may be found in terms particularly of mental health, psychosocial support, but assistance also to the families who are having a very difficult time going from door to door looking for their missing relatives, etcetera.
So it should have a role that can have an impact very quickly and very immediately.
And the role that may have an impact on the situation on the ground changes a little bit more and maybe access will be allowed and and places can be visited etcetera.
But it needs full support now to get going and by the member states, both in terms of funding through the UN, but other forms of support to the institution once it starts running.
Thank you.
Concluding GEM.
It's about the so-called normalisation of Syria among the Arab states.
I, I, I think that the 12 years of war in Syria are a monument to the failure of diplomacy and anything that can happen in terms of diplomacy, I think that is the size of to end the war, even if this ending, this happy ending will not happen soon.
I think that any opening of new diplomatic channels so that you have dialogue.
If you don't have, you don't open channels, it's impossible to have dialogue.
That is, of course, we don't give good grades or bad grades to the initiative of a major member states, but I I think that it it can have some positive consequence.
The return of the government, Syria to the food of the Arabic state.
Why?
Because, of course, the three issues, considering the resolution of the Arab League of States, the question of drugs, the question of terrorism, depression of return, the size of important and relevant objectives.
But there are a lot of things that can be done, particularly in terms of of the large, the large territory of of human rights.
Not only thinking about the violations, but in fact of the promotion, as we said in the beginning, the promotion of economic and social rights.
There are several avenues that can be be explore and we count that the liaison committee established by the resolution with some countries like Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, I'm forgetting someone and other other states, for instance, in the Gulf can play an important role in this rebirth of diplomacy.
And we we'll do our best that we could take advantage of this opening.
This is not optimistic evaluation.
We cannot we, we, we don't have a crystal ball.
We, we don't exercise a futuristic exercise.
But I think that anything that happened in terms of changing the nature of the diplomatic contacts with Syria, I think that it can open.
And that is not that you will be pleased, but to the protection of the interests of the Syrian people that this is the main objective of all parts, all Member states in the world if they want to end with this tragic, tragic conflict.
Thank you very much.
It was a pleasure to be in this room, this new room again.
I wish you a good day.
Thank you.
Before we close, I just want to double check if Lauren Ciero had a question.
Your hand was raised and it was lowered.
Did you have a question, Lauren?
No, that was for the questions I I could ask.
Thank you.
OK.
All right.
Well, thank you.
Thank you very much for briefing us today and thank you all for joining us here.
Have a good day.