Johannesburg: Ahead of a summit meeting of the tri-nation IBSA grouping, international rights group HRW on Sunday said the three nations should not "sit by and watch" Syria implode and should rather use their forum to forcefully demand an end to crackdown on anti-regime protesters.

The Human Rights Watch resented in a statement issued here that India, Brazil, and South Africa are not leveraging their rising global influence to help stop the bloodshed in Syria.

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The two-nation IBSA meeting begins in Pretoria tomorrow and will see Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and South African President Jacob Zuma come together.

Earlier in August, representatives of the three countries, who are also presently non-permanent members of the UN Security Council, went to Syria and met the leadership. At a recent vote on a UN Security Council resolution, which threatened sanctions against Syria, India, Brazil and South Africa had abstained from voting.

"IBSA leaders shouldn`t sit by and watch as Syria implodes," said Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

"Their efforts at private dialogue have achieved nothing, and hundreds more Syrians have died in the meantime," he said. According to figures compiled by the UN, more than 3,000 people, including at least 187 children, have been killed in a crackdown since March in Syria where protests are continuing against the regime of Bashar Al Assad.

Leaders of the three countries should use their forum meeting "to categorically demand that the Syrian government end its widespread and systematic attacks on antigovernment protesters and activists," HRW said, pointing out that it had documented systematic, widespread, and gross violations of human rights by the Syrian government, amounting to crimes against humanity. It also pointed out that on the eve of the IBSA summit, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, has confirmed her office`s finding of "credible allegations of crimes against humanity in Syria".

"By abstaining, India, Brazil, and South Africa have failed the Syrian people and emboldened the Syrian government in its path of violence against them," Houry said, referring to the UNSC vote on the Syrian crisis.

The resolution drafted by European countries and supported by the US was blocked by vetoes from Russia and China.

"The IBSA countries should not be the last to wake up to the severity of the crisis facing Syrian people," Houry said.

PTI