The relentless campaign of airstrikes in Syria has been met with a “collective shrug,” the top United Nations human rights official said on Friday, denouncing the world’s apparent indifference to the mounting civilian casualties as a “failure of leadership” by the world’s most powerful countries.
After 80 days of intensifying attacks, many on health facilities, “the carnage must stop” in northwest Syria, said the UN relief chief on Thursday, noting that more than 70 civilians had been killed this month alone across the last rebel-held enclave of the country.
Reports that airstrikes have hit several health facilities in north-west Syria have been strongly condemned by the UN Secretary-General.
According to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), at least seven children were killed in an airstrike against displaced civilians on Saturday on the village of Mhambel, in the outskirts of Idlib, in northwest Syria. News reports state that over 20 civilians were killed in this attack led by Government forces using missiles and barrel bombs.
This Thursday, we cover: the dire humanitarian situation in Syria’s Idlib; living conditions at the US-Mexico border denounced by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF); trachoma-related blindness on the verge of being eliminated; and updates from the Human Rights Council in Geneva.
The heads of 11 global humanitarian organizations warned on Thursday that the embattled rebel-held province of Idlib in Syria, stands on the brink of disaster, with three million civilian lives at risk, including one million children.
“Week after week, month after month, year after year”, the Security Council has been briefed on Syria’s humanitarian suffering, and on Tuesday, the UN’s Emergency Relief Coordinator once again described “the latest horror facing civilians”, pleading for greater humanitarian access.
Monday’s top stories include: human rights issues in Syria, Iraq and the Occupied Palestinian Territory; a global forum to find coordinated solutions to the plight of refugees worldwide; the election of the new head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.
Unabating violence, destruction and a downward sprial in overall conditions for the desperate people trapped in north-western Syria’s Idlib were in the spotlight as the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator told the Security Council on Tuesday that “we are faced with a humanitarian disaster unfolding before our eyes”.
The 15 members of the United Nations Security Council adopted on Tuesday the very first ever resolution focused on the issue of missing persons in armed conflict. The aim is to encourage countries to fulfil their obligations, take action to step up prevention, and tackle the issue earlier, so that ultimately families separated by conflict can be reunited, or at least given answers as to the fate of their loved ones.
