Washington, D.C. – House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA) issued the following statement after Amnesty International found that as many as 13,000 people – mostly civilians – were executed through extrajudicial executions by the Syrian regime between 2011 and 2015:

“As part of a systematic effort to eliminate all opposition, Bashar al-Assad and his government have hanged to death as many as 13,000 Syrians opposed to the Syrian regime. In all, it’s estimated that more than 500,000 innocent Syrians have been killed by chemical weapons, barrel bombs, and regime firing squads.

“The blood of thousands of Syrians is on Assad’s hands, and the world should treat him like the pariah he is. He and his backers must be held accountable for these crimes against humanity and genocidal acts.”

Note: “Caesar,” a Syrian Army defector, smuggled out of Syria thousands of photographs documenting the Assad regime’s war crimes. In 2014, he briefed the Foreign Affairs Committee on what he witnessed.

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