U.N. Says Syria Death Toll At Least 4,000 as EU Hardens Sanctions
The number of people killed in Syria following a crackdown on protesters since March has reached at least 4,000, the U.N. rights chief said on Thursday, as the European Union tightened sanctions against Syria's energy and financial sectors.
"We are placing the figure at 4,000. But the information coming to us is that it's much more," said United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay during a conference in Geneva.
Pillay will address a special session of the Human Rights Council on Friday called to discuss the findings of an independent panel on the human rights situation in Syria.
The Independent Commission of Inquiry said on Monday Syrian forces had committed crimes against humanity, including the murder and torture of children, following orders from the highest levels of President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
The panel gathered evidence from 233 witnesses and victims on the heavy-handed repression of anti-regime protesters but was not given permission to enter the country.
A previous toll issued by the U.N. earlier this month put the number of estimated deaths at 3,500.
Pillay gave the revised figure, which she described as "conservative", during questions posed by journalists at the launch of a social media campaign promoting Human Rights Day on December 10.
Asked if the situation in Syria met the criteria of an armed conflict, Pillay said it would be necessary to study the report to see the extent of action by opposition forces.
"I have said that as soon as there were more and more defectors threatening to take up arms -- I said this in August to the Security Council -- that there's going to be a civil war," the High Commissioner said.
"It's a question of studying the report to see the extent of what they call the opposition forces in order to reach the characterization of armed conflict."
European Union foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton led calls on Monday for the special Human Rights Council session following the publication of the report.
A draft EU resolution condemns the "serious systematic violations of human rights" committed by Syrian authorities and asks that the findings be submitted to the U.N. General Assembly and the U.N. Security Council.
The Human Rights Council previously held special sessions on Syria on April 29 and on August 22-23.
Meanwhile, the EU stiffened economic sanctions on Syria on Thursday, ramping up international pressure on the Assad regime.
"The EU reiterates its condemnation in the strongest terms of the brutal crackdown by the Syrian government which risks taking Syria down a very dangerous path of violence, sectarian clashes and militarization," EU foreign ministers said in a statement during talks in Brussels.
The ministers said they decided to implement "further restrictive measures targeting the regime’s ability to conduct its brutal repression."
The sanctions target "the energy, financial, banking and trade sectors and include the listing of additional individuals and entities that are involved in the violence or directly supporting the regime."
Diplomats said the measures include bans on exporting gas and oil industry equipment to Syria, trading Syrian government bonds and selling software that could be used to monitor Internet and telephone communications.
They also agreed to refrain from providing concessional loans to Syria -- credit at lower rates and longer grace periods than what is offered by the markets.
The goal is to restrict the regime's access to cash.
The EU also added 12 more individuals and 11 more entities to a blacklist of people and companies hit by assets freezes and travel bans over the regime's crackdown on protesters, diplomats said.
The EU has passed nine rounds of sanctions against Syria, placing 74 people on the list, including Assad, enforcing an arms embargo and banning imports of Syrian crude oil.
On the ground, “six civilians were killed (on Thursday) and nine others were wounded, five of them critically, in operations by Syrian forces in the town of al-Tremeesa" in the central province of Hama, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement received by Agence France Presse.
Further south in the flashpoint province of Homs, two civilians were killed by security forces, one of them allegedly by sniper fire, the Britain-based Observatory said, adding that a third man died of gunshot wounds sustained a day earlier.
The Observatory said residents in the Homs town of Tal Kalakh reported the presence of militias loyal to Assad patrolling the area and said "heavy and light machine gunfire" was heard.
Tal Kalakh residents feared that government troops were preparing to raid the town, the statement added.
In the country's southern Daraa province, the Observatory said Syrian forces withdrew from the town of Dael, a day after seven members of Assad's security forces were killed there in clashes with army deserters now fighting to overthrow the embattled regime.
On Wednesday, 14 civilians, including a woman and a 12-year-old boy, were killed by security forces in several Syrian provinces as the eight-month government crackdown on protesters demanding Assad's ouster continued unabated.
Source: Agence France Presse
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