This video footage shows Syrian regime military personnel and affiliated militiamen destroying the roof of a building near the bakery in al Gharbi neighborhood in Saraqeb city in Idlib suburbs to steal the reinforcing steel beams used in supporting the structure. Local activists informed the Syrian Network for Human Rights that the city has been emptied of its civilian population since the Syrian regime seized control of it on March 2, 2020 in which the forces started to loot the contents, fixtures and fittings from buildings, with this theft even extending to the rebar supporting the buildings.
We can confirm that this looting is a systematic strategy used by the Syrian regime’s forces and pro-regime militias in all areas controlled by these forces, with the regime first bombing buildings and displacing the owners and residents before its forces pillage them and strip them of everything that remains. This is a barbarous multi-dimensional strategy deliberately pursued by the Syrian regime in order to maximise victims’ suffering. The SNHR has been working for several months on an expanded report analyzing this systematic phenomenon in multiple regions of various Syrian governorates.
Image source: Video footage from surveillance cameras belonging to a faction of the Armed Opposition filmed while monitoring the military movements in Saraqeb city on August 11, 2020