By Anjali Sharma
UNITED NATIONS –UN top independent rights investigators on Thursday reported that widespread pillaging and the destruction of property in Syria by all parties to the conflict have largely gone unpunished and likely amount to war crimes,.
The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria’s latest report follows the operation led by Hayat-Tahrir al-Sham fighters that toppled President Bashar al-Assad last December, ended the 13-year war that decimated the country and destabilized the entire region.
The report authors said that the violence is believed to have killed hundreds of thousands of Syrians and uprooted 15 million.
They noted that various armed groups including former government troops and opposition fighters carried out wide scale damage to and pillaged Syrian property, particularly in areas that changed hands repeatedly during the fighting.
The Assad regime’s security forces targeted those perceived as political opponents, including demonstrators, activists, deserters and defectors, their families and communities, the report’s authors continued.
The vast areas of land where refugees and internally displaced people had relocated to were also pillaged and ransacked to the point of rendering entire neighborhoods uninhabitable.
Forces stole household items, furniture and valuables, which they would sometimes sell at markets including some created specifically for this purpose, the report stated.
They dismantled roofs, doors, windows, iron rods, electrical wires and plumbing fixtures.
The Commissioners of the report explained “Systematic pillage was coordinated by members of the former Syrian army, such as the Fourth Division, and affiliated security forces and militias, who concluded business agreements with private contractors or merchants interested in acquiring looted items, including raw materials”.
They added that the wrongdoings could “amount to war crimes” if “carried out for private or personal gain”.
The accountability for these crimes has not happened and the overwhelming majority of perpetrators have escaped any accountability.
“The impunity for the war crime of pillage has been near total in Syria” except for a few convictions in areas held by the Turkey-backed Syrian National Army, it said.
“The only known convictions that relate to pillage or property offenses concern female former members of ISIL [or Da’esh, the terrorist group]”, the report said.
It added that none of the forces perpetrating pillage on a massive scale had been prosecuted.
The Commissioners urged renewed efforts to protect housing, land and property rights as paramount to the country’s efforts to rebuild after a decade of crippling conflict.
They warned if the violations remain unaddressed, grievances and social tensions will be exacerbated, fuelling cycles of violence and displacement.
The investigators wrote that following the fall of the regime, on 8 December, the “devastating patterns” of pillage “must not be repeated”.
The report urged all military commanders and newly empowered leaders to prevent and punish any instances where property is stolen was left behind by those newly displaced.
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