United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appointed on Thursday Karla Quintana of Mexico as Head of the Independent Institution on Missing Persons in Syria.
“Indeed, all international mechanisms to advance the protection of human rights in Syria and accountability for crimes committed – must have what they need to carry out their vital work,” he said.
The International Commission on Missing Persons in The Hague separately said it had received data indicating there may be as many as 66, as yet unverified, mass grave sites in Syria.
More than 150,000 people are considered missing, according to international and Syrian organizations, including the United Nations and the Syrian Network for Human Rights, it said.
Ahead of a UN Security Council meeting chaired by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Guterres underlined that Israel's widespread strikes on Syrian military infrastructure were “violations” of the country's sovereignty and called for them to cease, AFP reported.
Israeli warplanes have carried out hundreds of attacks across the country, including in the capital, Damascus.
Israeli officials said the strikes across Syria were aimed at destroying strategic weapons and military infrastructure to prevent them being used by rebel groups that drove President Bashar Assad from power this month.
Ahead of the Security Council meeting, Guterres called for the full restoration of Syria’s sovereignty, territorial unity, and an end to all fighting.
He condemned Israel for pushing its forces into a UN-run buffer zone on its border with Syria following the fall of Assad.
“Let me be clear, there should be no military forces in the area of separation other than UN peacekeepers -- period,” he said.
“Those peacekeepers must have freedom of movement to undertake their important work. Israel and Syria must uphold the terms of the 1974 Disengagement of Forces Agreement which remains fully in force.”
Guterres then stressed that the UN is working to facilitate a peaceful political transition in Syria, adding that adequate funding for humanitarian and recovery response is critical.
He said there is “a real risk that progress could unravel,” without an “inclusive, credible and peaceful” political transition that is Syrian led, on behalf of all its citizens.
“This is a decisive moment – a moment of hope and history, but also one of great uncertainty,” the UN chief said.
“Some will try to exploit the situation for their own narrow ends. But it is the obligation of the international community to stand with the people of Syria who have suffered so much,” he added.
Meanwhile, hundreds of Syrians protested Thursday in central Damascus calling for democracy and women’s rights, more than a week after the opposition coalition ousted Assad.
“We want a democracy, not a religious state,” men and women demonstrators chanted in central Damascus’s Ummayad Square, as well as “Free, civil Syria” and “the Syrian people are one”, while some protesters held signs including “No free nation without free women.”
The protest came more than 10 days after Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) launched a lightning offensive from their northwest Syria bastion, sweeping swathes of territory from government control and taking the capital on December 8, toppling Assad.
