‘5 million Syrians at risk from explosive weapons’

Explosive weapons were being widely used in heavily populated areas in violation of international law, putting millions of lives at risk, said a report by NGO Handicap International.

A wounded Syrian boy awaits treatment by doctors at a makeshift hospital in the rebel-held area of Douma, east of the capital Damascus, following reported airstrikes on the city on May 11, 2015. Abd Doumany/AFP PhotoShow less

BEIRUT // The lives of more than five million Syrians, including two million children, are at risk from explosive weapons used in the conflict.

Handicap International, which helps the disabled during conflicts, warned on Tuesday that explosive weapons were being widely used in heavily populated areas in violation of international law, and that unexploded ordnance posed a long-term threat.

“In total, 5.1 million people – including two million children – are living in areas highly affected by the use of explosive weapons, creating an immediate and long-term threat to their lives,” the NGO said.

It said use of the weapons by all parties to the conflict was having “dreadful consequences for civilians”.

“Because of their blast or fragmentation effects, explosive weapons kill or generate complex injuries,” the group’s regional coordinator Anne Garella said.

“The wide use of explosive weapons combined with the lack of appropriate surgical care in Syria has a devastating impact on people’s lives.”

The group’s study found explosive weapons had been “massively used” by all parties to the conflict, accounting for more than 80 per cent of all recorded incidents of violence.

Three-quarters of incidents involving the weapons were in densely populated areas, suggesting “that the belligerents have no intention of effectively distinguishing between civilians and combatants, a violation of international humanitarian law”, the report said.

The group noted that explosive weapons also pose a longer-term threat, creating injuries that can leave the wounded permanently disabled, but also exposing the population to unexploded ordnance.

“The impact of explosive weapons thus goes beyond the immediate casualties: the presence of explosive remnants of war remains an obstacle not only for the security and the wellbeing of the civilian population, but also for the overall reconstruction of the country.”

Handicap International urged parties to the conflict to end the use of explosive weapons in densely populated areas, and to facilitate humanitarian access to those injured.

The group called on the international community to condemn the use of explosive weapons in populated areas and to enforce a UN Security Council resolution demanding unfettered humanitarian access in Syria.

Hours after the report was released, two motorcycles rigged with explosives blew up in the central city of Homs, killing at least four people and wounding 28, Syria’s state media said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the blasts occurred in neighbourhoods that are mostly inhabited by members of president Bashar Assad’s minority Alawite sect.

Also on Tuesday, at least 20 people were killed in a regime barrel bomb attack on a mini-bus stand in a rebel-held part of Aleppo city, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights group said.

“Helicopters committed a massacre, dropping a barrel bomb on a mini-bus station in the Fardous district of Aleppo, killing 20 civilians, among them children, and injuring 30 more,” said the monitor.

The Britain-based monitor said the toll was expected to rise because of the number of serious injuries among the wounded.

Syria’s conflict, now in its fifth year, has killed more than 220,000 people since anti-government protests broke out in March 2011 spiralling into civil war in the face of a bloody crackdown by security forces.

The report by Handicap International said that between December 2012 and March 2015, the group analyzed 77,645 incidents – such as fighting and bombardments – and found that explosive weapons are the most commonly used weapons in Syria.

Handicap International said weapons have been used by all parties to the conflict and that the explosive weapons used include mortars, rockets, artillery shells, aircraft bombs, cluster munitions and mines.

The Syrian government has been repeatedly condemned for its widespread use of barrel bombs, crude weapons made from oil drums, gas cylinders or water tanks, packed with explosives and scrap metal and dropped from helicopters.

Rebel groups have been condemned for their use of rudimentary rockets that lack targeting mechanisms and have repeatedly hit civilian areas.

* Agence France-Presse and Associated Press