SDC blames Damascus for 'humanitarian disaster' on anniversary of Syrian revolution

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – On the 11th anniversary of the Syrian uprising against Damascus, the Syrian Democratic Council said on Monday that "the authority in Damascus is responsible for the humanitarian disaster in Syria."

A Statement on the occasion of the Syrian Revolution

Eleven years have elapsed since the outbreak of the #Syrian_Revolution, which began in the city of #Daraa after more than a suffering was become clear by Syrians in Damascus and other areas..https://t.co/fJ6DfWgrsg

— Syrian Democratic Council SDC (@SDCPress) March 14, 2022

Anti-government protests erupted in March 2011 in the city of Daraa after the arrest and torture of teenagers who painted anti-government slogans on a school wall. 

"Eleven years have elapsed since the outbreak of the Syrian Revolution, which began in the city of Daraa after more than a suffering was become clear by Syrians in Damascus and other areas," the SDC said in a statement.

"This movement quickly spread in most Syrian cities and towns, and expanded to include all regions of the country," it added. "The voices of peaceful demonstrators calling for freedom and dignity are continuous, and those free voices were met with bullets, and the excessive violence practiced by the security services in a brutal manner unprecedentedly in modern history."

"The authority in Damascus is responsible for the humanitarian disaster in Syria, and it is primarily responsible for the killing, destruction and displacement, sending people to prisons and detentions, and the loss of abductees and forcibly disappeared persons."

The SDC reiterated the need for a political transition to establish a democratic, pluralistic, and decentralized state in Syria that constitutionally guarantees the rights of all national and religious groups.

"The Council stresses the need for all parties of the National Democratic Opposition to come together for a unified vision, an inclusive plan and a path to end the crisis and occupation and achieve the goals of the revolution of freedom and dignity," it said. 

"The council also calls on the international community to cooperate and support the national democratic path because it is the only way to save the country and achieve security and stability in the region."

Read More: Syria's 11-year war has come at an 'unconscionable human cost': UN Secretary-General

Also, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday marked the 11th anniversary of the outbreak of the Syrian conflict by lamenting the "massive and systematic" human rights violations caused by that conflict over the last 11 years that resulted in "unconscionable human cost."

"The destruction that Syrians have endured is so extensive and deadly that it has few equals in modern history," he said.

Moreover, the SDC recently recalled the Kurdish uprising that broke out in the northeastern Syrian Kurdish city of Qamishli on Mar. 12, 2004. 

Read More: SDC president calls 2004 Qamishli uprising' basis of the Syrian popular revolution'

The rebellion began as a football riot sparked by Arab fans of a rival team who rose pictures of deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to taunt the Kurds.

"The Mar. 12, 2004 uprising against the central Ba'athist regime, which began in al-Qamishli and spread to Aleppo and Damascus, is the common will of the Kurdish people and the basis of the Syrian popular revolution," President of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) Executive Committee Ilham Ahmed tweeted.