Security Council Needs to Act Against Continued Use of Barrel Bombs

Press Statement

Khaled Khoja

President of the Syrian Coalition

February 25, 2015

Over the past couple of years, unguided barrel bombs dropped by Assad’s militias on residential areas have dismembered, maimed, and killed thousands of innocent civilians across Syria. Calls for abandoning the use of these deadly indiscriminate monsters went completely unheeded. Assad has even denied their use and made an ugly joke about them.

However, there is an abundance of evidence pointing to Assad’s use of barrel bombs; evidence that has recently been documented by the UN and a number of respected human rights groups. Human Rights Watch reported yesterday, Tuesday, that the Assad regime has dropped hundreds of barrel bombs on hundreds of sites across Syria during the past year, in stark defiance of UN Security Council Resolution 2139.

The UN Commission of Inquiry (COI) on Syria also found in its 9th report, published on February 20, 2015, that “barrel bombs are regularly dropped on crowded areas, such as bakery lines, transportation hubs, apartment buildings and markets.”

The UN Security Council meets tomorrow to discuss Syria and the implementation of Resolution 2139, which demands an immediate end to attacks against civilians, including the use of barrel bombs. In light of this bulk of evidence of the regime’s non-compliance, Russia and China have no legitimate, morally justifiable reason whatsoever to block action at the Security Council.

The failure to act decisively will only embolden the Assad regime to continue its indiscriminate attacks against the civilian population. In Resolution 2139, the Security Council expresses its intent to “take further steps in the case of non-compliance with this resolution.” It is time to put an end the deadlock at the Security Council. It is time to stop the carnage in Syria.

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