Syrian Coalition Urges UN to Check up on Status of Civilians Fleeing Eastern Ghouta and Ensure Their Protection

Press release

Syrian Coalition

Media Department

March 19, 2018

The Syrian Coalition calls on the United Nations to send a special committee to check up on the situation on the ground and ensure the well-being of people fleeing the bombardment of the Damascus suburb of eastern Ghouta. It also calls for providing protection for civilians and ensuring they are provided with appropriate shelter.

We have received worrying reports about the status of around 20,000 civilians who have been forced to leave eastern Ghouta to escape the barbaric bombardment that has been ongoing for weeks. Regime forces have reportedly detained hundreds of civilians and are holding thousands more in underequipped, crowded shelters with very limited access to food and drinking water as well as necessary medicines.

We have not yet verified all the reports we have so far received. However, these reports must be taken seriously by international organizations, especially the International Committee of the Red Cross. International agencies and organizations must check up on the status of civilians fleeing eastern Ghouta and ensure their safety as soon as possible.

The dispersal of families, the separation of children from their families, forcing the people to chant for the criminal Bashar al-Assad and hold his photographs, the detention of hundreds of people in detention centers similar to the Nazi concentration camps under the supervision of the Iranian sectarian militias, the practice of terrorism and the issuance of threats of murder and detention, the endless humiliation of those fleeing eastern Ghouta are all crimes that need to be publicly condemned. These crimes must be stopped and action must be taken to ensure that they are not repeated by Assad the regime and its allied foreign militias.