The UN held a press briefing yesterday in Damascus. We arrived late but in time to hear UN figures of 75,000 civilians who have escaped Eastern Ghouta for the safety of the Syrian government centres set up to receive these traumatised civilians as they flee the terrorist occupation of their towns and villages via the Syrian/Russian established and negotiated humanitarian corridors.
According to a UN official, 25,000 of those civilians have been reunited with their families by the Syrian government, the remaining 50,000 are in the IDP centres and are being taken care of by Syrian civil society organisations.
These UN figures are lower than the Syrian Government and Russian negotiator numbers but it is not unusual for the UN to be out of alignment in this respect. Syrian Arab News Agency recently reported numbers closer to 135,000. However these UN figures still expose western media reporting of much lower numbers as deeply flawed at best, deliberately misleading at worst.
Assaf Abood from BBC Arabic told me that the UN is not doing enough to assist at these IDP centres and he raised this question during the meeting. He also informed me that there are an estimated 130,000 civilians still in Jaish Al Islam controlled Douma.
Negotiations are ongoing between Russia, the Syrian Government and Jaish Al Islam (a Saudi financed terrorist faction) to decide upon their ultimate evacuation destination, among other important conditions for their surrender and the final release of all civilians under their control.
It is worth mentioning that Jaish Al Islam have the reputation of being the most brutal & extremist of the terrorist occupiers in Eastern Ghouta. The notorious “repentance prison” is located here:
“These terrorists are taking the civilians as hostages, they have a jail in Douma (Eastern Ghouta’s main city) called the Jail of Toubah, do you know what Toubah means in Arabic? It’s ‘Repentance’, you don’t leave this jail until you repent. They have thousands of innocent people taken prisoners, civilians, and put in this jail in Douma. And from time to time they take women and children, put them in cages and drive them into the streets” ~ Syria News
Wafedin Camp
Yesterday I went to Wafedin Camp located at the end of the main humanitarian corridor that has allowed civilians to leave the occupied Eastern Ghouta under the protection of the Syrian Arab Army. These corridors have been regularly shelled and civilians sniped in an effort by the terrorist factions to prevent their exodus.
The loss of human shields and propaganda assets is a hard blow to these NATO-member-state sanctioned terrorist factions. There is also the fear of what will be said by these civilians once they reach safety and are able to express themselves freely without threat of imprisonment or worse. We saw this in East Aleppo.
