At noon on Tuesday, 20 March 2018, on the eve of Mother’s Day, armed terrorist gangs perpetrated a new horrific massacre against peaceful civilians in the Kashkul public market in Jaramana near the city of Damascus when they launched a deadly rocket at women and children from their positions in eastern Ghouta. That crime resulted the deaths of 44 civilians and injuries to dozens more, most of whom remain in critical condition. In addition, missiles of hate launched by the terrorists at populated areas of the city of Damascus also injured more than 10 people in the Imarah neighbourhood. That is in addition to damage done by rockets and mortar shells in numerous parts of the capital city of Damascus.

These crimes come as part of a series of massacres being perpetrated by the terrorist gangs that some like to call “the moderate armed opposition”. Such massacres have been ongoing since the onset of the crisis fabricated by colonial States in Syria in 2011. Attention should be drawn to the fact that the representatives of the States that are normally so quick to convene emergency sessions of the Security Council in New York and the Human Rights Council in Geneva in support of the terrorists have on this occasion, as has now become customary, put aside their capacity for reasoning and swallowed their tongues in the face of the catastrophic horror of this new massacre, which counted children and women among its victims and rises to the level of an act of genocide, a war crime and a crime against humanity. It should no longer be surprising that the representatives of the United States of America, France and Britain should close their mouths, which have for some time been nothing more than megaphones for supporting terrorism and justifying terrorist crimes.

Syria stresses that this systematic pattern of behaviour by the representatives of those States and their proxies and clients is devoid of slightest sense of humanity. There is no trace whatsoever of a moral dimension in their policies. They have also lost the slightest shred of awareness of the values of international law and international humanitarian law, as they provide direct support for armed terrorist groups by financing them, arming them, and defending their crimes in international arenas.

Throughout the years of this terrorist war against it, the State of Syria has defended its right to protect its people and stop the bloodshed. It has made every sacrifice and effort in its power to spare Syria, the region and the world from the massacres being perpetrated by the terrorists.

As it has done in the past, Syria today calls for an end to these terrorist acts. It also calls on those States that are hiring, financing and arming the terrorist gangs, including the Wahhabi Saudi regime and the Qatari regime, to desist from doing so without delay. Syria also appeals to the Member States of the United Nations to uphold the values of the Charter, which stresses the goal of saving the peoples of the world from the scourge of war. Syria calls on the Member States to lay bare the true objectives of this war being waged by the colonial States, their proxies and their terrorists against the people and land of Syria.

I should be grateful if the present letter could be issued as a document of the Security Council.