The French investigative site Mediapart reveals that the NGO SOS Chrétiens d’Orient is suspected of complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity in Syria. The Central Office for the fight against crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes has been interested since 2020 in the potential support of the NGO for the regime of Bashar el-Assad and his militias.
On its website, SOS Chrétiens d’Orient presents itself as an apolitical association that has been helping Eastern Christians in danger since 2013.
But what the Central Office for the fight against crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes scrutinizes are the activities of the NGO in northwestern Syria around 2016. According to MediapartSOS Chrétiens d’Orient has collected several thousand euros and carried out humanitarian operations in two towns in the governorate of Hama, with the help of the Christian militias that hold these towns.
Simon al-Wakil and Nabel Al-Abdullah, their leaders, belong to the National Defense Forces, a branch of the Syrian army, responsible, according to the NGO Human Rights Watch, for war crimes. One of them was documented by another association, Pro-Justice, which claims that 78 villagers, including children, were murdered in a few hours in the region.
This Friday, SOS Christians of the East only wished to answer questions from Agence France Presse. The NGO denies having been complicit in the slightest crime and specifies that it only distributed medicines and food to populations subjected to attacks by jihadist groups.
The organization denounces a political trial by Mediapart, which in its columns also details the close ties it has forged since its creation with the far right. With the National Rally of Marine Le Pen and more recently with Éric Zemmour.