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Aleppo: The truth that the western media refuses to report
December 15, 2016
Andrew Ashdown is a Church of England priest studying Christian-Muslim relations in Syria. In the last few days he has visited East Aleppo.
This is the report of his visit to the area yesterday (14th December)
that he published on his facebook page.
This morning we visited the main IDP Registration centre at Jibrin,
for Internally Displaced Persons from East Aleppo. They are registered
here for humanitarian reasons and access to services, before they go
either to relatives in other parts of Syria if they have them (many
do), or to other reception centres where they are provided with
accommodation, food and other services. During the past two weeks they
have registered 95,000 refugees, but estimate there may be a further
10,000 who have not registered. There were thousands of people there
who have arrived within the last couple of days. Let me make clear
that we visited in a taxi without Government or Army accompaniment,
and without prior notice. We were not expected.
The Centre is well organised. The Syrian Red Crescent have tents
available that offer information about all social welfare facilities
available, and offer free medical attention. In cases of emergency,
ambulances are on hand to transport patients to hospital. Free food is
being distributed by the Syrian Red Crescent and the Syrian Army, and
we saw a convoy of Russian lorries providing aid. There is also a
Russian field hospital on site which offers immediate medical
treatment.
The sense of relief amongst the thousands of refugees is
palpable.idp16 All were keen to talk, and we interviewed several who
had arrived only yesterday and today. They all said the same thing.
They said that they had been living in fear. They reported that the
fighters have been telling everyone that the Syrian Army would kill
anyone who fled to the West, but had killed many themselves who tried
to leave – men, women and children. One woman broke down in tears as
she told how one of her sons was killed by the rebels a few days ago,
and another kidnapped. They also killed anyone who showed signs of
supporting the Government. The refugees said that the ‘rebels’ told
them that only those who support them are “true Muslims”, and that
everyone else are ‘infidels’ and deserve to die.
They told us they had been given very little food: that any aid that
reached the area was mostly refused to them or sold at exorbitant
prices. Likewise, most had been given no medical treatment. (A doctor
who has been working with the refugees for weeks told me last night
that in an area recently liberated, a warehouse filled with brand new internationally branded medicines had been discovered.) Most of the
refugees said they had had members of their families killed by the
rebels and consistently spoke of widespread murder, torture, rape and
kidnap by the rebels. They said if anyone left their homes, their
properties and belongings were confiscated and stolen.
idp23One old man in a wheelchair who was being given free treatment in
the Russian Field Hospital said he had been given no treatment for
three years despite asking. He said: “Thank God we are free. We now
have food. We can now live our lives. God bless the Syrian Army.” They
all said they were glad to be out and to be free. All the refugees
without exception were visibly without exception clearly profoundly
relieved and happy to be free. One woman said: “This is heaven
compared to what we have been living.” We asked if the Syrian Army had ill-treated anyone. They said never. One woman said: “They helped us
to escape and they provide us with food and assistance.”
I therefore have two key questions:
1. It is now only the Syrian Red Crescent, the Syrian Army, and the
Russians who are providing humanitarian aid to the tens of thousands
who have fled East Aleppo. Why are none of the international agencies
offering to help them now?
2. Why is it, given that stories about massacres by the Syrian Army
are headline news worldwide, and several international media units are
in Aleppo, that there is not one international media agency actually
at the Registration Centre talking to the refugees themselves? We were
the only ones there. Here are people who have lived through it who are
keen to talk, yet the media take at face value unverifiable claims by
highly dubious sources. The collapse of any form of reliable
investigative journalism in a context of global significance is
utterly shocking.
Today the agreement for 4000 fighters to leave Aleppo is reported to
have collapsed after the fighters had refused to fulfil the agreement.
(I don’t know the details, but think about it… There is no reason on
earth why the Syrian Government would want this agreement, which would
involve the complete liberation of the city, to fail!) It is reported
that the fighters refused to leave or let the civilians do so.
The refusal of the western media to report objectively, or to seekidp2
informed information from the thousands of civilians from East Aleppo
who are keen to share their stories, whilst granting full credibility
to terrorists without any on the ground verifiable information on
their claims, is nothing short of obscene.
Everything that I have seen and heard in Aleppo; from civilians in
East and West from all communities, and from talking with doctors,
faith communities and with Army people as well, and witnessing and
risking bombardments on both sides, convinces me that the reports in
the western media are twisted fabrications of the horrors that are
happening in ‘rebel’ controlled areas. And still, the media refuses to listen to the witness of the people themselves.
Postscript: Christmas is coming in Syria. In a country and a city in
which people of all faiths are free to worship; where mosques and
Churches stand side by side; and where Christmas music is playing in
cafes and restaurants. And yet the world is mourning the defeat in
Aleppo of extremists who destroy Christian and Muslim places of
worship, and slaughter any who do not follow their obscene ideology.
https://t.co/XVISeta0vg
--
Steve Hayes
http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
http://khanya.wordpress.com
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