Geneva: The Syrian government intentionally bombed the Ain al Fijeh spring in December, leaving more than five million people in Damascus without access to water, a UN probe said on Tuesday, branding the strike a “war crime”.
“The information examined by the Commission confirms that the bombing of (the Ain al Fijeh) spring was carried out by the Syrian Air Force,” the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria said in a report.
The report, which was presented to the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday, dismissed regime allegations that rebels had contaminated the water. Around 5.5 million people in Damascus and its suburbs were cut off from water when fighting intensified in Wadi Barada near the Syrian capital in late December.
The regime accused the rebels of poisoning water resources and cutting off the mains, while the armed opposition said regime bombardment had destroyed the infrastructure.
The UN commission, which has never been granted access to Syria and bases its reports on interviews and documents, said it had found no “indications that the water was contaminated” before the spring was bombed on December 23.
“On the contrary, interviewees say that Wadi Barada residents used water up until the bombing of 23 December and no one experienced any symptoms of contamination,” the report said.
Following the bombing, the water was contaminated after shrapnel damaged fuel and chlorine storage facilities, it said. The bombing itself indicated that the “spring was purposely targeted,” said the commission, headed by Brazilian academic Paul Sergio Pinheiro.
Syria’s representative to the rights council, Hussam Aala Edin, on Tuesday reiterated accusations that the commission was politicised, and slammed its “amateurish approach” and “naive conclusions”.
More than 320,000 people have been killed and millions forced to flee their homes since Syria’s conflict erupted in March 2011. — AFP
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