ﻣﺮﻛــــﺰ ﺗﻮﺛﻴـــــﻖ اﻻﻧﺘﻬﺎﻛـــــــﺎت ﻓﻲ ﺳﻮرﻳـــﺎ Violations Documentation Center in Syria Civilians Have the Most to Lose in Operation ‘Peace Spring’ Special Report on Recent Violations In North East Syria The Violations Documentation Centre | October 2019 List of Contents About the Centre Introduction Methodology and Challenges Summary Attacks Against Civilian Objects Ceasefire Agreement The Violations Violations documented on Wednesday, 09 October 2019 Violations documented on Thursday, 10 October 2019 Violations documented on Friday, 11 October 2019 Violations documented on Saturday, 12 October 2019 Violations documented on Sunday, 13 October 2019 Violations documented on Monday, 14 October 2019 Violations documented on Tuesday, 15 October 2019 Violations documented on Wednesday, 16 October 2019 Violations documented on Thursday, 17 October 2019 Violations documented on Friday, 18 October 2019 Violations documented on Sunday, 20 October 2019 Violations documented on Tuesday, 22 October 2019 Violations documented on Wednesday, 23 October 2019 Finally 2 About the Centre The Violations Documentation Centre in Syria is an independent, non-governmental and non- profit Syrian organization established in April 2011. The Centre monitors and documents human rights violations in Syria and simultaneously contributes to the promotion and dissemination of human rights culture and concepts in the country. The Centre is led by a number of activists from inside and outside Syria (approximately thirty activists), most of whom are located in Syria in various governorates, cities and towns. Irrespective of the identity of the perpetrator or the victim, the Centre’s activists monitor and document violations from all parties to the conflict, such as the names of victims, detainees, missing persons and abductees in Syria. 3 Introduction The Violations Documentation Centre (hereinafter referred to as the VDC) presents this report which is based on a rigorous process and on human rights and documentary perspectives. In this report, the VDC ensured to maintain its ongoing policy on being uninfluenced by any political background and on refraining from the use of terminology that may incite violence and hatred. The production of this report relied on the testimonies of eyewitnesses, activists and local residents who have first-hand experience of the ongoing events. The VDC refrains from citing or referring to the names of its sources of information. This is to prevent potential threats to their lives during the ongoing conflict between the parties in the cities and towns of north-eastern Syria. The displacement crisis among the population of the targeted area remains one of the most prominent features of the suffering caused by the recent military operations. The suffering of the internally displaced persons (hereinafter referred to as the IDPs) continues to be a source of devastation to Syrians since the beginning of the conflict. Areas where IDPs have settled in following the loss of their homes and towns are not safer than the areas they came from. Hostilities in northeast Syria have caused massive population movements. Around 180,000 people, including 80,000 children, have fled to the southern border areas between Turkey and Syria in the past two weeks. According to the UN figures, most of them managed to stay with friends and relatives, while others sought shelter in camps for displaced people. The population of al-Hasakah constituted the largest number of displaced persons, where fighting is taking place between the Kurdish Protection Units on the one hand and the Turkish army and the National Army factions supporting it on the other hand in the border areas. in addition to Kobani /Ain al-Arab in Aleppo and Tal Abyad/ Girê sipî in Raqqa governorate. According to the UN figures, around 3 million people live in north-eastern Syria. This includes 710,000 displaced people and 1.8 million people needed humanitarian assistance before the recent escalation of the conflict by the involved parties. The UNICEF, however, estimated that nearly 70,000 children have been displaced since the escalation of violence in north-eastern Syria. The UNICEF is concerned that the need for humanitarian assistance for at least 170,000 children will increase as a result of the violence in the region. 4 Methodology and Challenges Panic among civilians as well as the fear of detention or future reprisals were some of the main challenges that faced the VDC in the process of collecting data for this report. These challenges also involved communicating with local activists who were moving from one area to another for fear of being arrested or prosecuted. The VDC team has also encountered serious difficulties in obtaining accurate information and figures on the ongoing violations, far from exaggerating or underestimating what is happening. The report relied on testimonies and statements of eyewitnesses who were in direct contact with the event as the source of its information. The VDC has taken into account the substantive conditions to produce a report which has the merit of being simple on the one hand, yet objective in its observation of the of violations committed by all parties that took place on the other. In preparing this report, the VDC adopted a special methodology for documenting military operations, which enabled it to document 51 military strikes and attacks with lists of the names of the civilian victims whom the VFC was able to verify. In this report, the VDC excluded all objectives which, after verification, proved to be of a military nature. The VDC notes that this report does not address a number of attacks for which its investigators have not been able to conduct a detailed and thorough investigation, even if they have been included in media reports from local media offices or social media. This is due to the inaccessibility of several sources about single attacks. This, however, does not mean that the VDC denies these attacks. The VDCs definition of violations is based on the definitions contained in international human rights conventions, human rights standards, international humanitarian law, the Rome Convention containing the Statute of the International Criminal Court and the Geneva Conventions, including, but not limited to, attacks against civilians, civil infrastructure, humanitarian and relief facilities. The VDC documents violations committed by all actors in Syria regardless of race, religion, political allegiance or any other factor and is equidistant from all violators and victims. The Centre also documents as much information as possible about each violation, including the perpetrator, the place and date of its occurrence, its type as well as other statistical characteristics that may be relevant to victims and violations. Statistics in this report are inconclusive. They are subject to periodic and ongoing reviews by the Centre’s activists first, and data processors and field observation team inside Syria afterwards. 5 Summary This report covers the period between 09 and 23 October 2019 through which the VDC team recorded the following violations: 51 violations committed by all parties to the conflict across the north-eastern regions of Syria. 33 violations by the Turkish army and its Syrian National Army factions from the beginning of the military operation on 09 October 2019 until the 23rd of the same month. The team also documented 10 violations committed by the People’s Protection Units (YPG) fighters during the same period. 6 violations that we were unable to identify their perpetrators. The death of one child at the hands of Syrian government forces. The death of 223 people since the beginning of the military operation on 09 October, including 59 civilians who were killed by the Turkish army and the National Army factions supporting it and 21 civilians by the Syrian Democratic Forces (hereinafter referred to as the SDF)1,in addition to 143 non-civilians. Attacks Against Civilian Objects The VDC documented three attacks2 by Turkish forces on three hospitals on Friday, 11 October. These hospitals are: - Tal Abyad Hospital in Tal Abyad / Girê sipî, in Raqqa governorate. - Ain Dewar Hospital in Al-Malikiyah / Dêrika Hemko, in al-Hasakah governorate. - Ras al-Ain Hospital/Serê Kaniyê, in al-Hasakeh governorate. An attack has also targeted a medical point near Ras al-Ain / Serê Kaniyê in al-Hasakah governorate. The attack resulted in the death of a paramedic on 14 October 2019. It also killed 5 people from the medical staff of the Kurdish Red Crescent. The VDC also documented an attack carried out by the Turkish army against a convoy of media and other civilians, which resulted in the killing of three journalists, including a Ukrainian national. 1 -The Syrian Democratic Forces, briefly referred to as the SDF, is a multi-ethnic and multi-religious alliance of predominantly Kurdish militias, as well as Arab and Assyrian / Syriac militias. The SDF is composed mostly of the SDF, which is mostly Kurdish factions, which leads the forces militarily. 2- Attack: Rather than the number of shells, a single attack here means a full day of shelling which targets one place. 6 Ceasefire Agreement On the morning of Wednesday, 09 October 2019, the Turkish Ministry of Defense issued a statement in which it announced a large-scale ground incursion into northern Syria as part of ‘Spring of Peace’ operation launched against the Syrian Democratic Forces with the support of the Syrian National Army factions3. The military operation began with Turkish warplanes launching airstrikes on border towns and cities controlled the SDF. A ceasefire was announced in northern Syria on 17 October 2017 between the Turkish army and the National Army factions on the one hand, and the SDF on the other. The agreement entered into force at 10 pm local time (19:00 GMT). On October 22, 2019, the Russian and Turkish governments reached another agreement to extend the ceasefire for an additional 150 hours in order for the SDF to complete their withdrawal 30 kilometers away from the border area, as well as the cities of Tall Rifat and Manbij.