The Intensive use of “Prohibited Weapons” in Syria

The Violations Documentation Center presents this report about the attacks in which prohibited weapons were used during the years 20192020-. The report reviews the extensive use of banned weapons by the parties of the conflict, including barrel bombs, explosive containers, cluster bombs, and incendiary munitions.

This report does not mention any of the attacks that the Center’s documenters were unable to conduct a detailed and thorough investigation about, even if they were mentioned in media reports from local media offices or social media, with mentioning civilian casualties. This is due to the unreachability of several sources about the same attack, but this does not mean that the Center denied the occurrence of these attacks.

This report documents the widespread use of illegal explosive weapons, which have a Widespread range, in populated areas in Syria

The center’s team managed to record (26) attacks by all the conflict parties in Syria, and in this report, the center ruled out all the targets that were proven to have a military nature.

The center’s team documented (11) attacks with cluster munitions and cluster bombs by the Russian forces and the Syrian government forces and their affiliated groups. It also documented (5) attacks with incendiary munition by the Russian and Syrian government forces. The center’s team recorded at least two incendiary munition attacks by Turkish forces in northeastern Syria. It also documented (8) attacks using barrel bombs and explosive devices by the Syrian government forces.

The report methodology was based primarily on testimonies obtained wherever possible and directly from survivors and witnesses of grave violations of international humanitarian law, and from field activists; those testimonies were collected by the Violations Documentation Center correspondents in Syria, and to make the report more comprehensive and brief about the banned indiscriminate and weapon attack during the years 20192020-, the specialized team in the center analyzed dozens of videos and pictures that were taken by media activists during the attacks on residential areas. The report also relied secondly on dozens of news and news reports from the bombed areas which were documented with pictures or news that was «verified and accurate» which show or describe different forms of killing and destruction that followed each airstrike on different residential areas all over the country.

To read the full report: