Human rights lawyers have today filed the first ever case against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and his government at The Hague, after making a “breakthrough” in attempts to hold the regime to account.

The lawsuit, which was submitted to the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Thursday, is on behalf of 28 Syrian refugees in Jordan who were forcibly displaced.

Each of the 28 has testified about being bombed, shot at, detained, tortured, and having witnessed mass killings since the war began in 2011, which forced them to flee.

Syria is not a signatory to the ICC Statute, which meant it had not previously been possible to open a case against the government.

The ICC can investigate international crimes in any country if the United Nations Security Council requests it do so, as has happened in Sudan and Libya. However, Russia and China, both allies of the Assad regime, blocked a request by the US to bring Syria before the court in 2014.