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Monday 8 April 2019

The UK is complicit in a crime against humanity at Rukban camp

PDF version. Updated 12 April 2019.

While MPs have been absorbed in Brexit, the UK Government and Ministry of Defence have failed in their legal duty to civilians under Geneva Convention IV, and are now complicit in a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

The UK must now urgently deliver aid to Rukban’s civilians by any means necessary.



Where and what is Rukban camp?

Rukban camp is in southern Syria on the border with Jordan, near where it meets the Syria-Iraq border.

Rukban is a camp of internally displaced Syrians, numbering between 40,000 and 50,000, who fled towards Jordan and were blocked by Jordan from crossing the border.

Rukban camp is next to Tanf, a Coalition base. The base is currently held by US forces and supports the Coalition’s Syrian client militia forces in the Tanf zone.

Rukban camp is inside a 55 kilometre radius zone around Tanf base controlled by Coalition forces, including the Royal Air Force.

What is happening with Rukban camp?

Russia and the Assad regime are trying to forcibly displace people from Rukban camp by blocking access for food and medical aid.

Russia and the Assad regime want the population to return to areas under the control of the Assad regime, as a step towards the regime regaining control of the area.

Most people in the camp are afraid to go to regime-held areas, fearing conscription, imprisonment, torture and killing.

Latest report 12 April 2019: Over two thousand women and children, and some men, have been forced to leave for regime-held areas, due to aid being blocked.

(2,254 people up to 12 April, approx. one in twenty of Rukban’s population. Data source: SARC)

Jordan’s government also wants Rukban camp cleared in order to avoid any further responsibility for the people living there.

Jordan has been blocking most cross-border humanitarian access for years.

The US-UK Coalition as the occupying force has legal duties to civilians in Tanf zone under Geneva Convention IV, including to bring in aid when necessary. The US and UK are not fulfilling this legal duty, or even acknowledging it.

How is the UK responsible for Rukban camp?

The UK is a senior partner in the anti-ISIS Coalition which is occupying Tanf zone.

The UK holds the post of Deputy Commander in the Coalition’s military campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria: Operation Inherent Resolve. This post is currently filled by UK Major General Christopher Ghika CBE.

The Coalition is enforcing a military occupation of the 55km radius Tanf zone which includes Rukban camp.

The Royal Air Force plays a part in enforcing the Coalition’s occupation of the Tanf zone.

This military occupation is part of a Coalition operation in Syria which claims legal justification under Article 51 of the UN Charter as collective self-defence of Iraq, as set out in a letter to the UN Secretary General on 23 September 2014 from then US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power.

Geneva Convention IV Section III sets out legal duties that come with any military occupation.

Article 49 prohibits individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory.

Article 55 states that: To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population; it should, in particular, bring in the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other articles if the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate.

The UK has the legal duty and the means to bring aid in to Rukban.

The RAF already operates in the Tanf zone. It has the aircraft and the experience to do the job. US forces have already demonstrated military air drops in the Tanf zone. Now the RAF must fly in aid.


The UK must now urgently deliver aid to Rukban’s civilians by any means necessary.


The latest news is that as many as 2,254 people have been forced to leave for regime-held areas. Those leaving are disproportionately women and children, as men in particular fear conscription or imprisonment by the Assad regime

Forcible transfer of population is a crime against humanity under Article 7 (d) of the Rome Statute of the ICC.

By failing its legal duty under Geneva Convention IV — and thus allowing conditions for forced displacement — the UK is complicit in a crime against humanity, and is at risk of future prosecution by the International Criminal Court.

Both the UK and Jordan are ICC State Parties.

By blocking cross-border aid, Jordan is similarly complicit and at risk of prosecution.

Jordan’s government, which is blocking cross-border aid access to Rukban camp, is also a recipient of major sums of UK aid.

The UK should privately and publicly press Jordan’s government to restore cross-border aid access to Rukban camp. Until Jordan does so, the UK must fly aid in to Rukban, either by air bridge via Tanf base or by air drop.

Write to your MP and call for the UK to do its legal duty towards civilians in Rukban camp.



Above: US military airdrop to US forces inside the Tanf zone, September 2018.

The US has repeatedly demonstrated that military air drops and airlifts to the Tanf zone are viable.

The UK military must now do its duty under Geneva Convention IV: deliver aid to civilians in Rukban camp.