The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) revealed in its latest report that it identified 770 points of destruction in Syria's Maaret al-Numan city, noting that at least 882 attacks targeted Idlib in one year.
SNHR said that destroying Maaret al Numan and Saraqeb cities and displacing their residents is a clear example of the Syrian regime’s tactics in its recent military campaign between early December 2019 and March 2020.
The war monitor said destroying cities and their environs, displacing their people, and seizing their properties is a malicious and criminal tripartite strategy by the Syrian regime intended to punish those demanding or dreaming of political change.
The report highlighted that the regime and its Russian and Iranian allies have by far exceeded the other parties to the conflict in forcible displacement of populations.
It attributed this to several reasons, mainly the use of the air force, violent barbaric shelling and the population’s fear of brutal reprisals, of arrest, torture or illegal conscription into the Syrian regime’s forces.
The report points out that in the first months of the military campaign which began on April 26, 2019, the population of large areas was displaced, before the Syrian regime and its allies intensified their military attacks at the end of 2019 on and around Idlib governorate.
"During this campaign they targeted Maaret al Numan city, Saraqeb and their environs, along with the northwestern suburbs of Aleppo," according to the report.
SNHR said in its report that the region has witnessed five cease-fire agreements; the first of these was declared on August 1, 2019, while the latest one began on March 6, 2020.
"All these ceasefire agreements failed completely to achieve any actual cessation of combat operations."
According to the report, each agreement was followed by a military escalation more violent than its predecessor, which led to the Syrian regime advancing on the ground.
SNHR documented at least 882 attacks by Russian-Syrian alliance forces in and around Idlib since April 26, 2019, up until May 29, 2020, including attacks on 220 places of worship, 218 educational facilities, 93 medical facilities, 86 Civil Defense centers, and 52 markets.
The report cites Maaret al Numan city as a study model to demonstrate the true scope of the destruction that took place in the cities throughout the latest campaign that started in early December 2019. It relies on satellite images taken on February 27, 2020, that is, after the Syrian regime and its allies took control of the city.
SNHR further said that the out of the 770 destructed points, 15 were of completely destroyed buildings, 716 were of of buildings that sustained average damage, while 36 points of buildings sustained minor damage.
The report further says: "According to the calculations conducted by the work team of the ratio of the points of destruction to the area of the inhabited city that the team analyzed, which is approximately 8.5 square kilometers (850 hectares), concluding that each one- square kilometer area contains 90 points that have been destroyed (9 points in every 10 hectares), meaning that at least two percent of the city’s area is completely destroyed, and approximately 40 percent of it is partially destroyed."
SNHR stressed that the displacement of the people of these is organically linked to the process of destruction inflicted in these military operations, noting that "destroying cities and towns has been a deliberate strategic objective of the Syrian regime and its allies in order to force the people towards surrender, displacement, and humiliation."
