シリア地震、政府などが初動救援の妨げに　国連調査委

【ジュネーブ（スイス）ＡＦＰ＝時事】シリアに関する国連（ＵＮ）調査委員会は１３日、２月に起きた地震で甚大な被害を受けた同国北西部では、政府、反体制派、さらに国際社会や国連自体までもが初動救援の妨げになったと指摘した。（写真はシリア・アレッポで、地震により破損した自宅で食事をする家族）
　２０１１年３月以降のシリアにおける国際人権法違反を調査している同委員会によると、先月６日の地震発生後に戦闘行為の停止が確保されず、災害時に重要視される発生から１週間以内の救命活動に対する支援も進められなかった。
　委員会は声明で「シリアの人々は最も絶望的な状況の時に見捨てられ、無視されたと感じている」と述べ、失敗に関し別途調査するよう要請した。特にバッシャール・アサド政権は国際支援の受け入れ同意に１週間かかったと指摘。委員のハニー・メガリー氏は、国家主権を脇へ置いても、最初に国際援助が入るべきだったと強調した。
　またパウロ・ピニェイロ委員長はシリアが「放置の震源地」になったと述べ、戦闘中の勢力が「意図的に人道支援を妨害した」複数の疑惑を調査中だと付け加えた。
　同氏は「最も切実な状況にあったシリアの人々に、迅速に救命支援を差し向けることができなかったのは、（シリア）政府および国連を含む国際社会の完全な失敗」だと非難。さらに「理解しがたいことに、われわれが現在調査しているのは、地震被災地での新たな攻撃だ」と述べた。
　メガリー氏によると、砲撃は地震発生後２、３日で再開され、その後も続いている。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2023/03/14-16:42）

The world failed to act quickly enough in getting life-saving aid to Syrians in desperate need following last month's devastating earthquake, UN investigators said Monday.
The Damascus government, other civil war factions, the international community and the United Nations itself hindered the delivery of urgent assistance to the quake-hit northwest, the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria said.
They failed to secure an immediate pause in hostilities, or to facilitate life-saving aid through any available route, including for rescue teams in the crucial first week following the February 6 quake, the commission said.
The panel, which investigates and records all international human rights law violations since March 2011 in the country, said they were now probing fresh attacks since the February 6 quake -- which they branded incomprehensible.
Syrians felt abandoned and neglected by those supposed to protect them, in the most desperate of times, the independent three-member panel said in a statement, calling for a separate investigation into these failings.
President Bashar al-Assad's government took a week to consent to cross-border aid access, said the commission, with member Hanny Megally arguing that international aid should have gone in first, even if it meant skirting around state sovereignty.
- 15.3 million need aid -
Almost 6,000 people were killed in Syria by the 7.8-magnitude tremor that struck the country and neighbouring Turkey.
The UN estimates that five million people need basic shelter and non-food assistance in the quake-hit part of Syria.
Commission chair Paulo Pinheiro said Syria became an epicentre of neglect, adding that the panel was probing multiple allegations of warring factions deliberately obstructing humanitarian aid.
He slammed the wholesale failure by the government and the international community, including the UN, to rapidly direct life-saving support to Syrians in the most dire need.
Incomprehensibly, due to the cruelty and cynicism of parties to the conflict, we are now investigating fresh attacks even in the very areas devastated by the earthquakes, he added.
Megally said the shelling resumed within two or three days of the quake, and has continued since.
The Syrian conflict started in 2011 with Assad's brutal repression of peaceful protests, and escalated to pull in multiple foreign powers and global jihadists.
Nearly half a million people have been killed, and the conflict has forced around half of Syria's pre-war population from their homes.
- War crime allegations -
The commission issued its latest report Monday, covering violations committed in the second half of 2022.
More than 13 million people are displaced or refugees at a time when 90 percent of all Syrian civilians live in poverty, and 15.3 million are estimated to require humanitarian assistance to survive -- the highest level of people in need since the start of the conflict, the report said.
It recorded government forces using cluster munitions on a displacement camp, an indiscriminate rocket attack on a market and Russian airstrikes destroying a civilian home -- all with multiple fatalities.
These atrocities continue a long-established pattern of indiscriminate attacks, which may amount to war crimes, the commission said.
The report said that the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the northeast were still unlawfully holding 56,000 people in camps, mainly women and children, with suspected links to the Islamic State jihadist group.
The commission has reasonable grounds to believe that the suffering inflicted on them may amount to the war crime of committing outrages on personal dignity, and calls for repatriations to speed up.