S/2017/675 - Letter from Syria on airstrikes by the "international coalition" against villages in Dayr al-Zawr governorate that killed 60 civilians.

United Nations
Security Council

S/2017/675

Distr.: General
8 August 2017
English
Original: Arabic

Identical letters dated 2 August 2017 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

In numerous identical letters, the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic has informed the Secretary-General and the President of the Security Council that the international coalition has savagely attacked innocent Syrian civilians and premeditatedly destroyed economic facilities and infrastructure in the Syrian Arab Republic. The members of the coalition have admitted in official statements that they have caused the killing and injury of thousands of Syrian children, women and elderly people with the pretext of combating terrorism. The illegal coalition's forces have also bombarded the positions of the Syrian Arab Army, whose officers and soldiers are the backbone of the fight against terrorism. Those attacks have killed and injured hundreds of heroes, who have laid down their lives to combat Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and other terrorist organizations on behalf of all of the world's States.

In our most recent identical letters, dated 30 July 2017 (S/2017/655), we gave the Security Council detailed information regarding the crimes that the illegal coalition led by the United States of America has committed against civilians in a number of Syrian cities and villages, which have been reduced to a mass of blood and rubble strewn with the bodies of hundreds of Syrian civilians.

On 1 August 2017, international coalition aircraft carried out yet another massacre, killing no less than 60 civilians and injuring dozens more, most of whom were children, women and elderly persons. Missiles were fired at residential neighbourhoods and homes in the villages and towns of Kashm, Shuwayt, Duwayr and Asharah in Dayr al-Zawr governorate. Less than 48 hours earlier, coalition aircraft had carried out a similar massacre, bombarding the A'ishah hospital and civilians in the residential neighbourhoods of Nadi and Duwar al-Shuhada', in the city of Albu Kamal, killing six civilians and injuring dozens more, most of them women and children.

It has not been long since the Security Council and other United Nations entities adopted resolutions prohibiting all parties from targeting civilians, hospitals, schools and medical and food aid. Those resolutions call on all States to refrain from targeting such facilities. Why is the Security Council not holding the United States of America, and the coalition States in whose names these crimes were committed, responsible for what they have done to Syrian civilians, to hospitals, schools, bridges and dams, and to the channels that deliver water to civilians? These are the very crimes that the international community and the resolutions of the Security Council have prohibited. Have the members of the coalition no shame, lying before the Security Council while their countries' aircraft kill civilians and bomb hospitals and schools?

The Syrian Arab Republic once again calls on the States members of the coalition to distance themselves from the crimes that the coalition has committed in their name, and promptly to dissolve the coalition. The latter is now fighting against the forces responsible for counter-terrorism, and it has killed innocent civilians and destroyed hospitals, schools and infrastructure that the Syrian people built over several decades with great sacrifices.

In order to combat terrorism, it is essential to respect international law, instead of burying international humanitarian law along with the bodies of innocent civilians and the rubble of the infrastructure that they had built. Syria reiterates that the coalition must be dissolved, as its actions complement those of the terrorist groups brutalizing and murdering the Syrian people.

In its previous identical letters, the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic has emphasized that the Security Council and the Secretary-General cannot remain silent about the coalition. Silence would only undermine trust in the United Nations, which was established to maintain international peace and security.

(Signed) Bashar Ja'afari
Ambassador
Permanent Representative

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08Aug17

Letter from Syria on airstrikes by the "international coalition" against villages in Dayr al-Zawr governorate that killed 60 civilians