UN, 22 May 2014 – Despite repeated appeals by senior United Nations officials for accountability for crimes being committed in Syria, the Security Council was unable today to adopt a resolution that would have referred the situation in the war-torn nation to the International Criminal Court (ICC), due to vetoes by permanent members Russia and China.
The resolution, which was backed by the other 13 members of the Council, would have given the Court the mandate to investigate the horrific crimes committed during the course of the conflict in Syria, which since March 2011 has witnessed the deaths of over 100,000 civilians, the displacement of millions and widespread violations of human rights.
GENEVA: Extremist Islamic groups in Syria are committing a "soaring" number of killings in the country's north that could amount to war crimes, the UN human rights office said on Thursday.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay says that over the past two weeks her office has received reports of "a succession of mass executions of civilians and fighters who were no longer participating in hostilities in Aleppo, Idlib and Raqqa by hardline armed opposition groups in Syria, in particular by the" al-Qaida linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
She warned that such killings violate international humanitarian law, and the numbers of such violations are thought to be alarmingly high.
