Equipo Nizkor - UNSC S/2016/616 - Letter from Syria on the damages caused by the international coalition bombings against Syrian infrastructures.

United Nations
Security Council

S/2016/616

Distr.: General
18 July 2016
English
Original: Arabic

Identical letters dated 14 July 2016 from the Permanent Representative of the Syrian Arab Republic to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General and the President of the Security Council

On instructions from my Government, I write further to my previous letters informing you of acts of aggression carried out by the so-called international coalition led by the United States of America against the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic, its oil and gas facilities and its economic infrastructure. I wish to inform you that the coalition has once again deliberately attacked the service infrastructure by bombarding the following facilities:

The Malih station in the Tanak oil field, in Dayr al-Zawr governorate, on 29 February 2016;
The Dayr al-Zawr gas plant, in Dayr al-Zawr governorate, on 8 March;
The Dayr al-Zawr gas plant, in Dayr al-Zawr governorate, on 8 May;
The main gas collection plant in the Umar oil field, in Dayr al-Zawr governorate, on 25 June.

The repeated bombardments have caused extensive material damage and have almost completely destroyed some of those facilities. The so-called international coalition's attacks have caused considerable damage to Syrian oil and gas facilities, particularly in the governorates of Dayr al -Zawr, Hasakah and Raqqah.

Not content with such attacks, coalition aircraft have endangered civil aviation by violating the G202 air corridor. On 12 May, two reconnaissance aircraft belonging to the so-called coalition cut off the air corridor between the first station and Tall Ruwayhad on two successive occasions, first from 1011 hours to 1512 hours at an altitude of 10 kilometres, and then from 1751 hours to 2114 hours at an altitude of 5 kilometres. Four drones also cut off the corridor on the same date, from 1414 hours to 2000 hours. The aircraft of the so-called coalition have also violated the Sawkan and Zalaf air corridors on a daily basis.

The so-called coalition air force bombardments of economic facilities and infrastructure, along with the unilateral coercive economic measures which certain States have imposed on the Syrian people, have exacerbated the difficult situation in which the country finds itself. In view of those repeated and deliberate attacks on its oil facilities and its economy, the Syrian Arab Republic reserves the right to demand that the States participating in the American coalition pay compensation to Syria for the damage caused. Such compensation is a right enshrined in international law. The Syrian Arab Republic calls on those States to bring an immediate end to such practices, which are destroying the resources of the Syrian people, prolonging the crisis and delaying recovery. It also calls for an immediate end to all practices that endanger the safety of civil aviation.

I should be grateful if you would have the present letter circulated as a document of the Security Council.

(Signed) Bashar Ja'afari
Ambassador
Permanent Representative

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18Jul16

Letter from Syria on the damages caused by the international coalition bombings against Syrian infrastructures