UN investigators said Wednesday (June 20th) that Syrian regime and allied forces committed crimes against humanity during the five-year siege of Eastern Ghouta, AFP reported.

The UN Commission of Inquiry for Human Rights in Syria "has condemned this method of warfare in Syria as barbaric", the UN investigators said in a statement after releasing a 23-page report filled with details of civilian suffering.

As pro-regime forces escalated their campaign to recapture the opposition enclave between February and April, they used tactics that were "largely unlawful in nature", the report said.

The tactics, "aimed at punishing the inhabitants of Eastern Ghouta and forcing the population, collectively, to surrender or starve", the report said.

It described thousands of desperate people holed up for months in squalid basements with dwindling food rations and few if any sanitation facilities, as bombs and missiles rained down.

The report concluded that certain acts perpetrated by pro-regime forces during the siege, "including the deliberate starvation of the civilian population as a method of warfare, amount to the crime against humanity of inhumane acts causing serious mental and physical suffering".

The commission also faulted groups like Jaysh al-Islam, Ahrar al-Sham and Tahrir al-Sham for committing "war crimes" by launching "indiscriminate attacks" on Damascus.