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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - As the world focuses on the war in Gaza, a “massive upsurge in violence” in Syria is being overlooked, said Louis Charbonneau, United Nations director at Human Rights Watch.
“Syria is facing a massive upsurge in violence. We’ve seen since last fall, since September and October, a severe increase in attacks on civilians,” Charbonneau told Rudaw’s Sinan Tuncdemir in an interview in New York on Tuesday.
But this violence is not getting attention because “people are tired” after 13 years of reports of crimes against humanity and violations of human rights in Syria, he said.
In northern Syria, he said it is a “very, very horrific situation for civilians.”
Turkey and its proxy militias of the Syrian National Army (SNA) control an area of land along the border where they are accused of human rights violations and potential war crimes.
“We are seeing abuses being committed, not only by the SNA, but also by Turkish forces. This has been going on for some time,” said Charbonneau.
One of the areas Turkey is in control of is Afrin where the Kurdish population has been largely forced out of their homes. “There have been clear intentional demographic changes - the Turkish forces and the SNA removing Kurds who are living in these areas and then replacing them with Arabs who were living in other parts of Syria,” said Charbonneau who stopped short of calling it systemic demographic change.
Charbonneau also touched on Iran, saying that minorities such as Kurds and Baha’is are deliberately targeted by Iranian authorities.
After the death of Kurdish woman Zhina Mahsa Amini, “the protests in Kurdish areas of Iran were subjected to especially brutal crackdowns by Iranian authorities,” he said, calling on governments around the world to gather information and prosecute individuals responsible when possible.
“This would send a strong signal, I think, to the authorities in Iran, that the world is taking abuses of minorities in Iran seriously,” he said.
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