UN rights chief wants Syria referred to ICC - Arab News

UN rights chief wants Syria referred to ICC - Arab News

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NICOSIA: Mutinous soldiers have attacked a Syrian Air Force intelligence base in the northwestern province of Idlib, killing eight people, while hours of intense shooting and clashes across Syria killed at least four people Friday and wounded dozens more — including an 11-year-old girl who was struck by stray bullets that whizzed across the border into Lebanon, activists and security officials said.

The UN's human rights chief cited the killing of at least 307 children since March to urge world powers to refer these and other allegations of Syrian "crimes against humanity" to the International Criminal Court.

Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said fresh reports from the country — including the updated death toll for children from less than a week ago — reinforced the need for the Security Council to submit the situation in Syria to the Hague-based court.

"In light of the manifest failure of the Syrian authorities to protect their citizens, the international community needs to take urgent and effective measures to protect the Syrian people," Pillay told an emergency meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

A draft resolution backed by African, European, Asian, Arab and American members of the 47-nation rights council calls for the establishment of a special investigator on Syria, but leaves open the issue of whether the Security Council, the UN's most powerful arm, should refer the country to the ICC.

Col. Riad Al-Asaad told Reuters that fighters from the Syrian Free Army, a loose collection of military units formed from thousands of military deserters, had improved their reconnaissance ability to enable them to disrupt army movements.
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