BRICS should move beyond “ineffective pronouncement” and call for specific actions to address the unfolding tragedy in Syria to immediately end indiscriminate attacks on civilians, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday.
It urged the BRICS countries, which are meeting in Durban for the annual summit on March 26 and 27, to insist that cluster munitions and incendiary weapons should not be used.
When BRICS countries met in New Delhi in 2012, they called for “an immediate end to all violence and violations of human rights” in Syria. In Durban, BRICS should move beyond that general but ineffective pronouncement and call for specific actions to address the unfolding tragedy on the ground.
In particular, BRICS should call for an immediate end to indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian-populated areas, including by ballistic missiles, to the unlawful use of cluster munitions and incendiary weapons, and to summary executions, enforced disappearances, and torture of those detained, Human Right Watch said.
“Syrians need more than empty words from the BRICS countries,” said Peggy Hicks, global advocacy director at Human Rights Watch.
“Rather than just call for an end to violence, it is time for BRICS states to make clear that the punishment of the civilian population must stop.”
BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) should also call for Syria’s Government to allow humanitarian aid to be brought into the country across all of its borders, including from Turkey.
Since the BRICS countries expressed “deep concern” at the situation in Syria at the summit meeting a year ago, the death toll in the Syrian conflict has increased from 9,000 to more than 70,000.