Sexual Violence Forcing Syrians to Flee Abroad, IRC Says
Source: Bloomberg
Rape and other forms of extreme sexual violence in Syria, often committed in front of family members, is a major reason for increasing numbers of people to flee their homeland, the International Rescue Commission said.
“Many women and girls relayed accounts of being attacked in public or in their homes, primarily by armed men,” according to the 28-page report from the New York-based refugee assistance agency. “Sexual violence was consistently identified by Syrian women, men and community leaders as a primary reason their families fled the country.”
Cases described in the report included attacks by armed rapists, especially at the roadblocks that have proliferated across Syria. The IRC was told of a nine-year-old girl who had been brutally raped, of a man whose genitalia were destroyed by attackers and of a father “who shot his daughter when an armed group approached to prevent the ‘disgrace’ of her being raped.”
More than 600,000 Syrians have fled the country to seek refuge in countries including Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey since the conflict began in March 2011, the United Nations estimates. Another 200,000 are awaiting registration or are unaccounted for, and about 4 million Syrians are in dire need of assistance, the IRC said.
Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-14/sexual-violence-forcing-syrians-to-flee-abroad-irc-says.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
