U.N. Says Detainees in Syria Should Be Released

Tens of thousands of Syrian detainees should be released and torturers and executioners should be brought to justice, a U.N. human rights official said on Tuesday, Reuters reported.

“Today in a sense the entire country has become a torture-chamber; a place of savage horror and absolute injustice,” said U.N. high commissioner for human rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein.

“Ensuring accountability, establishing the truth and providing reparations must happen if the Syrian people are ever to find reconciliation and peace,” he said.

Some 87 percent of those detained in Syria are held by the government, with many suffering “horrendous acts of torture,” according to Fadel Abdul Ghani, the director of the Syrian Network for Human Rights. A total of 106,000 people in Syria are in custody.

ICRC, U.N. Deliver Aid to Besieged Towns for First Time Since November

Aid groups delivered humanitarian aid to four besieged towns for the first time in six months, Deutsche Welle reported.

Around 20,000 people in Fou’a and Kafraya are besieged by rebel forces in Idlib province, while 40,000 people in Madaya and Zabadani are besieged by pro-government forces outside Damascus, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.

Trucks carrying food supplies and baby formula entered the four besieged towns, whose fates are tied together by a September 2015 agreement. The deal, known as the “Four Towns Agreement,” stipulates that aid can reach one town only if it reaches all four simultaneously.

Rebels Will Go to Astana, Kazakhstan Says

A rebel delegation will attend peace talks in Astana despite earlier refusing to do so, according to the Kazakh foreign ministry, Agence France-Presse reported.

“Representatives of the southern and northern fronts [of the Syrian armed opposition] are expected to arrive tonight,” the ministerial spokesman said.

“They will hold consultations tomorrow with experts from the guarantor countries [Russia, Turkey, Iran] on the observation of the cessation of hostilities agreement.”

Rebels had previously said they would not attend talks in Astana this week, accusing Russia of failing to maintain the cease-fire it is supposed to be guaranteeing. Moscow is a key ally of the Syrian government.

RECOMMENDED READS:

• The Telegraph: Six Years of War in Syria: ‘I Regret That So Many Innocent People Had to Die,’ Says the Boy Whose Defiance Sparked the Conflict
• International Crisis Group: Hizbollah’s Syria Conundrum
• Syria: direct: Why Did Waer’s Opposition Drop Its Prisoner-Release Condition?
• BBC News: Six Decisive Points That Changed Syria’s War
• The New York Times: Syrian Military, Not Rebels, Severed Damascus Water Supply, U.N. Finds