Germany Opens New Trial on Crimes Committed under Bashar al-Assad’s Regime in Syria
On 19 November, the Higher Regional Court of Koblenz initiated a new trial concerning crimes committed under the Assad regime in Syria, which, for the first time, will examine the famine and siege of Yarmouk, a former Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus.
The case concerns four alleged members of the Syrian militia “Free Palestine Movement” (FPM) and one alleged Syrian intelligence officer, who are being prosecuted for homicide, murder, torture, deprivation of liberty and the use of prohibited methods of warfare. They are accused of participating in the violent repression of a peaceful demonstration against the Syrian regime on 13 July 2012, and the subsequent siege of the Yarmouk population, which was blockaded and deprived of food, medicine and humanitarian aid. “Siege, starvation, forced surrender” became a deliberate war strategy used by the Assad regime to brutally target hundreds of thousands of civilians in opposition-held areas.
Despite being one of the most emblematic atrocities of Assad’s brutal war, to date no court has investigated the siege and famine of the civilian population in Yarmouk, nor sufficiently addressed the systematic nature of the blockade. Accordingly, this trial, by examining starvation as a method of warfare under international criminal law, sets important legal precedents and evidentiary standards that Syrian institutions may integrate into their accountability processes.
“The history of Yarmouk has never been written, as those who could have told it were tortured, starved, killed, or forced to flee. This trial represents a beginning: an attempt to fill that void and demonstrate to the world that Yarmouk was not collateral damage, but a deliberate project of destruction. Without this truth, there will be neither justice nor memory oriented towards the future” states Ruham Hawash, raised in Yarmouk and Regional Manager of the Syria Programme at ECCHR.
The parallels with the current situation in Gaza resonate strongly: the Syrian and Palestinian population of Yarmouk has largely vanished. Before the war, the camp had one million inhabitants—200,000 Palestinians and 800,000 Syrians—but today only approximately 3,200 families have returned. They lack basic services, water and electricity, and the structural devastation prevents the return of those forcibly displaced.
Eleven months after the fall of the Assad regime, the Yarmouk case represents a significant contribution to the Syrian transitional justice process and the largest universal jurisdiction trial to date. It is also a major opportunity to reaffirm that—wherever it occurs—starvation constitutes a war crime.
Federica Carnevale, Junior Project Manager.
