Syria: A physician in Aleppo testifies
A man evacuates the children of a school in the district of Furqan, of Aleppo.
The Lebanese daily newspaper L’Orient Le Jour reported on November 27 remarks made on November 26, 2016, by the Qatari Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sheikh Mohammad ben Abderrahmane al-Thani, concerning support offered by Qatar to the jihadist rebels. “This aid will continue, we will not interrupt it. Even if Aleppo falls, we will not abandon the demands of the Syrian people,” he declared. The Syrian army announced on November 26 the capture of a strategic district in East Aleppo, the part of the city controlled by the rebels. “Even if the regime captures (Aleppo), I am sure that (the rebels) will have the ability to take it back from the regime.... We need more military support, yes, but what is even more important is to stop the bombing and to create safe zones for the civilians.”
In Letter no. 27 of the Blue Marists dated September 17, Doctor Nabil Antaki, director of a hospital in Aleppo, explained the painful situation of the city’s inhabitants: “They have been suffering for more than four years and are anxious for this nightmare to end. They are disgusted when the media speak only about the sufferings of the civilians in a few districts in East Aleppo controlled by the rebels and the terrorists, which have 250,000 inhabitants. The sufferings of the 1.5 million residents of West Aleppo are passed over in silence. They are disgusted with the dozens of mortar shells, rockets or gas canisters that fall every day on the civilian districts of Aleppo without anyone protesting. They are disgusted by the fact that electricity has been totally cut off for a long time, since the power stations are located in rebel territory. They are disgusted by the fact that water is totally cut off during the dog days of summer (40o C / 104o F in the shade) and they are obliged to use water from the 300 wells dug in the middle of the city during these past two years. They are disgusted with the blockades that they have endured for some time now and the resulting shortages. Every time the Syrian army makes a little headway or wins a battle to loosen the vice that the terrorists have clamped on Aleppo, they are disgusted to see governments and the media crying about this crime against humanity and demanding a truce to stop the advance of the Syrian army.”
On September 30, Doctor Nabil Antaki explained that “the vast majority of the inhabitants of West Aleppo heartily applaud the offensive by the Syrian army. . . . We are indignant also about the partiality and bias in the media coverage of the war of Aleppo. All Syrians and particularly the inhabitants of Aleppo wish only for peace. They are nostalgic for the beautiful, stable, secure, prosperous, secular country that they had before the war. Nobody wants to live under an Islamist regime, and everybody wants this war, which has resulted in 300,000 casualties, twice as many wounded and maimed, 8 million displaced persons, and 3 million refugees out of a population of 23 million, to end by a negotiated political process.”
(Sources: apic/olj/reuters/oeuvreorient – DICI no. 346 dated December 9, 2016)
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