Amnesty International has released a damning report about the role of the Coalition Forces comprising the US, the UK and France in the destruction of the Syrian city of Raqqa during a protracted bombing, in a faulty drive aimed at wiping out terror group ISIS.
The sustained bombings were too often indiscriminate and mowed down scores of innocent civilians trapped in a conflict not of their making.
In one incident highlighted by Amnesty International one family – the Hashish family – lost 18 members during the coalition-led bombardment, which was in support of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) as they battled ISIS.
The reputable human rights watchdog body has reported that a coalition airstrike directly killed nine members of the Hashish family, mostly women and children. It says the killings bear the hallmarks of “potential war crimes”.
Family member Munira Hashish told Amnesty International: “Those who stayed (in Raqqa), died, and those who tried to run away, died. We couldn’t afford to pay the smugglers, we were trapped.”
Hashish and her children escaped the coalition’s rain of fire through a minefield “by walking,” as she puts it, “over the blood of those who were blown up as they tried to flee ahead of us.”
Donatella Rovera, a senior Crisis Response Adviser at Amnesty International, has called on the coalition forces to launch an investigation into the bombing campaign that devastated the city of Raqqa.
Too often the West is quick to accuse anyone they deem not an ally of war-time excesses but too reluctant to accept their own excesses.
The US-led coalition, like Russia’s role in the Syrian conflict, is to defeat the scourge of the international terror group ISIS. What is hard to fathom is the inability of key role players in the conflict to get together and fight ISIS as a united front. Perhaps this caused by Russia’s rejection of the West’s regime change agenda in Syria.
The Syrian government has placed its confidence in the hands of Moscow to bring about an everlasting end to the conflict. Iran and Turkey, two major players in the conflict, support the Russian initiative which is has found no favour in the US-led coalition.
Amidst the unending differences of opinion, and notably ideological distance, the battle to annihilate ISIS fails. This is a pity, a great pity. Washington and Moscow, supported by countries backing either side of the conflict, need to come together with an inspired plan which will put first and foremost the welfare of ordinary citizens caught in the Syrian war above any other interest.
When two elephant fight, only the grass suffers, so the saying goes… And as for “the potential war crimes”, as per the claims by Amnesty International, these need to be investigated as a matter of urgency by reputable international bodies such as the UN, and transgressors of the established protocols like the Geneva Convention must be made to pay.
Finally, it is time the West appreciate that the Syrian regime is legitimate and attempts to dethrone it by force will fail and without cooperation with Moscow, the closest ally of Syria, ISIS will continue to benefit from the non-cooperation of the key role players in the conflict.
Hopefully, sooner rather than later, sanity will prevail and the Syrian conflict will be ended through the much-needed round-table talks led by the US president Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
By Abbey Makoe: Specialist Editor – SABC
