UN investigators are determined to continue documenting violations and hope that one day justice will be served after nine years of chronicling war crimes and horrendous suffering in Syria.
The UN Commission of Inquiry for Syria was set up a few months after the country’s bloody conflict ignited on March 15, 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.
The UN Human Rights Council mandated the investigators to probe “all alleged violations of international human rights law”, and urged them, when possible, to identify suspected perpetrators to ensure they could later be held accountable.
The task did not appear so daunting at first, when many expected the conflict would be short-lived.
Nearly nine years later, after more than 380,000 people have been killed and millions of Syrians have been displaced, the investigators this week presented their 19th report to the Human Rights Council.
They have never been permitted into Syria, but base their findings largely on interviews with victims and witnesses.
Over the years, the commission has repeatedly accused the various sides in the increasingly complex conflict of war crimes and, in some cases, of crimes against humanity.
But their endless calls for a halt to hostilities and for all sides to respect and protect civilians have largely gone unheeded.
The commissioners have for years been drafting a secret list of people and groups allegedly responsible for a vast array of violations.
The work of documenting horrifying abuses, including bombings of schools and hospitals, torture of detainees and sexual violence, is meanwhile grueling.
While the three commissioners work on a voluntary, part-time basis, they are backed up by a team of around 30 investigators, analysts and other experts who follow the situation around the clock.
