Syria demands reparation from US, allies for destroying Syria infrastructure
In letters to the United Nations, Syria has demanded compensation from the US and its “illegitimate coalition” allies for bombing civilian targets and destroying the country’s infrastructure, calling for an immediate halt to such strikes.
Syria’s permanent mission at the United Nations made the comments in two letters addressed to the world body’s secretary-general and the UN Security Council’s president, RT reported on Friday.
The Damascus government “insists that these attacks must come to an end, and that the members of this illegitimate coalition must bear the political and legal responsibility for the destruction of infrastructure in the Syrian Arab Republic, including responsibility for compensation,” said the letters.
The letters also underlined that the ongoing US-led airstrikes – purportedly aimed at destroying Daesh terrorists – “continue to claim the lives of hundreds of innocent Syrian civilians.”
Such bombings have led to a “near-total destruction” of homes and vital infrastructure, including the “utter destruction” of oil and gas facilities, wrote the letters.
According to the report, in the letters – which were devised last week — Damascus once again insisted on the illegitimacy of the US-led air campaign in Syria, emphasizing that it is being carried out in violation of international law as it lacks any form of authorization from the Syrian government.
Backing its assertions, Damascus further referred to two recent cases, where the coalition’s war planes destroyed Syrian oil and gas facilities.
It pointed to the May 27 bombardment of Hasu Albu Awf village in Hasakah Province by the US-led jets, saying the assaults “completely” destroyed many homes and killed at least eight civilians, “most of them children.”
Such attacks, along with US and EU-imposed economic restrictions on Syria, “are impeding the maintenance of those economic facilities and jeopardizing the prospects for development and reconstruction” in the nation, the letters added.
The development came as the US-led coalition announced on Friday that it destroyed a number of oil and gas facilities in various parts of Syria, claiming that they belonged to the Daesh terror group.
The so-called Operation Inherent Resolve confirmed a total of 603 civilian deaths by the coalition’s air campaign in Syria and Iraq this month.
However, the figure is much lower than those provided by monitoring groups.
Airwars reported this week that it tracked “more than 700 likely civilian deaths” in Syria’s Raqqah Province alone – even before the battle for liberating the city began in June.