On the early morning of 21 August 2013, the Damascus suburbs of Zamalka and Ein Tarma in Eastern Ghouta, and Moadamiya in Western Ghouta, were attacked with rockets loaded with Sarin nerve agent. An estimated 1,500 people were killed. Kassem Eid, then 27 years old, was amongst the survivors.
A message from Women Now For Development Via Facebook
Today on International Women’s Day, we usually celebrate women’s achievements, highlight their successes and shine a light on their empowerment. But today is not a normal day. It has been 17 days since our team, consisting of over 60 women, along with all civilians in Eastern Ghouta have been forced underground. They are living in damp, dark and ill-equipped bunkers that have no kitchens or bathrooms. They are also unable to eat, as there is no food reaching the area.
Last night was the worst night since the assault on Ghouta began. Our team is reporting that it was “a catastrophic night under chlorine gas and cluster bombs”. Adding to this, the recent aid convoy had been stripped of 70% of its medical aid supplies and was also unable to finish its distribution. This is one of the most dire developments of the humanitarian situation in Eastern Ghouta.
Under these circumstances, women are calling for an immediate end to the bloodshed, for the weapons to fall silent, aid to be allowed to enter the area and the siege to be lifted. Above all, the protection of civilians in accordance with international humanitarian law must be guaranteed.
On this day on which we celebrate women’s achievements, we should not forget those who have been forced into darkness. And even from these dark cellars and bunkers, messages reach us daily, updating us about the situation, and showing women’ strength and leadership. We have been publishing the stories and providing a platform for these women to share their fears, thoughts and hopes.
The situation all over the country is dramatic and civilians are under threat in many areas. Desperate pleas reach us from women all over the country, fearing for their lives and their families’ futures. We stand in solidarity with all civilians in Syria.
On this day, please take action and raise awareness about the situation in Eastern Ghouta and the rest of Syria. We can no longer afford to be silent in the face of such atrocities!
There are three actions you can take:
Follow and share women’s stories and stay updated on Ghouta on our Facebook and Twitter
Send us your messages of support on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram which we can share with our colleagues and other women in Ghouta
Donate to support Syrian women and girls in Syria and help us continue our work.
On ‘safe’ passage out of Eastern Ghouta, by Bronwen Griffiths, SyriaUK
“When we talk about an ‘agreement’, in reality there was no agreement at all; it was either we leave or we die.” (Activist from Daraya)
On Monday 26th February, Emily Thornberry, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, asked the Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, what discussions have taken place at the UN to enable the opening up of a corridor in Eastern Ghouta for humanitarian relief and “to allow civilian safe passage out of the city.”
On the surface, Thornberry’s comment seems eminently sensible. Who would not wish for the people of Eastern Ghouta, who have suffered so terribly, a means to escape? But there are a number of very serious questions which must be asked. For one, where will they go to? Are there safe places in Syria for them to go to? When will they be able to return to their homes? Will those who overtly oppose the regime—such as citizen journalists—be able to leave without fear of arrest and imprisonment?
A report from Amnesty International in 2017, We Leave or We Die—forced displacement under Syria’s reconciliation agreements, states that:
“Over the past five years, the Syrian government and, to a lesser degree, armed opposition groups have enforced sieges on densely populated areas, depriving civilians of food, medicine and other basic necessities in violation of international humanitarian law. Besieged civilians have further endured relentless, unlawful attacks from the ground and the air. The systematic use of this policy by the government has become widely referred to, including by the United Nations (UN), as a ‘surrender or starve’ strategy.”
‘Reconciliation’ agreements were agreed between August 2016 and March 2017 in the following areas: Daraya, eastern Aleppo city, al-Waer, Madaya, Zabadani, Kefraya, and Foua. These agreements are presented by the government and its allies as a ‘reconciliation’ effort, but, in reality, they come after prolonged unlawful sieges and bombardment and typically result not only in the evacuation of members of non-state armed groups but also in the mass displacement of civilians. The deals have enabled the government to reclaim control of territory by first starving and then removing inhabitants who rejected its rule.
Photo: Forced displacement from Aleppo, December 2016, via The Guardian.
During the recapture of rebel-held parts of Aleppo, pro-regime forces arrested doctors and aid workers and committed reprisal executions. The same is likely to happen in Eastern Ghouta.
A United Nations report (March 2017) concluded that the Aleppo evacuation agreement (which was overseen by the International Committee of the Red Cross) amounted to the “war crime of forced displacement”.
The population ‘transfers’ in Syria on the now-infamous green buses have come to symbolise dispossession and defeat. These ‘reconciliation agreements’ must be viewed in the context of the myriad of international humanitarian law violations and human rights abuses preceding, during, and after their implementation. Forced displacement of large numbers of people cannot be viewed as anything but a war crime.
A just end to this siege means not just allowing humanitarian access and medical evacuations, it also means Eastern Ghouta’s people being able to live in their homes in safety, and being free to come and go as they please.
After months of waiting, this UN convoy only had 1 month of food for 1 out of every 50 people.
While UN airdrops fed 100,000 people in Deir Ezzor for 1½ years, the UN has never once dropped aid to besieged Eastern Ghouta.
Drop aid now.
On 14 February, a UN and Syrian Red Crescent humanitarian aid convoy took food for 7,200 civilians for one month to Al-Nishabieh in besieged Eastern Ghouta. It was the first UN aid convoy to Eastern Ghouta since November. There are about 400,000 people trapped in Eastern Ghouta. This aid delivery was a drop in an ocean of need.
Medical supplies such as painkillers were included in Wednesday’s convoy, but medications needed to treat chronic illnesses were not, local council member Abu Saleh told Syria Direct.
UN OCHA tweeted: ‘If Nashabiyeh East Ghouta is a sample of communities in need, then the situation is far graver than imagined.’
According to OCHA’s report, ‘in Nashabieh, the UN technical team of the World Food Programme, UNICEF and the World Health Organization found a tired and exhausted population following long months of isolation. Families are forced to skip meals, some only having one meal a day. A young ailing girl informed the team she has been eating yogurt and nothing else.’
Jakob Kern, Country Director of the UN’s World Food Programme in Syria, tweeted: ‘We need much more such convoys. Fighting has to stop to deliver much needed aid to all civilians in need.’
The day before, 13 February, Jakob Kern tweeted impressions from the World Food Programme’s team in Deir Ezzor: ‘Abu Sufian told WFP: “Your airdrops kept us alive. We had at least some food to keep us going during the siege.”’
The UN successfully airdropped enough food and medical aid to besieged Deir Ezzor to sustain as many as 100,000 people for a year and a half.
In that time, the UN’s World Food Programme completed 309 airdrops of food and medical aid.
There have been ZERO aid airdrops to Eastern Ghouta.
UN agencies were given a mandate to plan aid airdrops to all besieged areas by the International Syria Support Group in June 2016. Today’s starvation in Eastern Ghouta is in part the result of a dereliction of duty by UN officials who didn’t want to rock the boat.
Eastern Ghouta was an agricultural area before the war. Space is available for drop zones.
Whether by road or air, UNSC resolutions empower UN agencies to deliver aid cross-line WITHOUT Assad regime permission.
Load the trucks. Drive them to the checkpoints in front of the cameras of the world’s media.
What legal power do UN agencies have to deliver aid inside Syria?
UN humanitarian agencies and their implementing partners are authorised to use routes across conflict lines in order to ensure that humanitarian assistance, including medical and surgical supplies, reaches people in need throughout Syria through the most direct routes, with notification to the Syrian authorities.
This means that Syrian authorities, upon receipt of notification, do not have a legal right to stop UN agencies delivering humanitarian assistance across conflict lines.
UN agencies have a legal right to declare that they are going to deliver aid to Eastern Ghouta, and the Assad regime then has no right to stop them.
Here is how that is set out in UN Security Council resolutions:
On 19 December 2017, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 2393 renewing legal authorisation for cross-border and cross-line humanitarian access in Syria by UN agencies. The details of the authorisation are set out in paragraphs 2 and 3 of the earlier UN Security Council Resolution 2165 (adopted 14 July 2014).
Paragraph 2 of Resolution 2393 states that the Security Council:
2. Decides to renew the decisions in paragraphs 2 and 3 of Security Council resolution 2165 (2014) for a further period of twelve months, that is, until 10 January 2019;
And those paragraphs 2 and 3 of Resolution 2165 state that the Security Council:
2. Decides that theUnited Nations humanitarian agencies and their implementing partners are authorized to use routes across conflict linesand the border crossings of Bab al-Salam, Bab al-Hawa, Al Yarubiyah and Al-Ramtha, in addition to those already in use,in order to ensure that humanitarian assistance, including medical and surgical supplies, reaches people in need throughout Syria through the most direct routes, with notification to the Syrian authorities, and to this end stresses the need for all border crossings to be used efficiently for United Nations humanitarian operations;
3. Decides to establish a monitoring mechanism, under the authority of the United Nations Secretary-General, to monitor, with the consent of the relevant neighbouring countries of Syria, the loading of all humanitarian relief consignments of the United Nations humanitarian agencies and their implementing partners at the relevant United Nations facilities, and any subsequent opening of the consignments by the customs authorities of the relevant neighbouring countries, for passage into Syria across the border crossings of Bab al-Salam, Bab al-Hawa, Al Yarubiyah and Al-Ramtha, and with notification by the United Nations to the Syrian authorities, in order to confirm the humanitarian nature of these relief consignments.
Last week the All-Party Parliamentary Group Friends of Syria held a discussion around the film Last Men in Aleppo, screened the same evening on BBC 4. Amongst those taking part was Alistair Burt, Minister of State for the Middle East. We went along to hear what he had to say, and to ask some questions.
Much of the minister’s remarks concerned opposition to military intervention in Syria amongst the UK public. Mr Burt argued that the vote in 2013 was not just a block on any possible military action, but a missed opportunity to persuade the regime to agree a more peaceful negotiated solution. The minister portrayed the UK now as having little say any more in events.
Missing in this was the fact that the UK has militarily intervened in Syria. The UK Parliament voted to intervene against ISIS in 2015, and the UK now shares responsibility for the consequences of that one-eyed campaign; consequences which include not just the near-total destruction of the city of Raqqa with civilian casualties comparable to the fall of Aleppo and with further mass displacement of ordinary Syrians, but also the retaking of territory by the Assad regime and its allies, Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah, striking as much fear in the heart of many Syrians as did ISIS.
Syria Solidarity UK believes the UK still has the capacity to act to protect Syria’s civilians, and has a duty to defend international humanitarian law, which has in so many cases been shredded in Syria, including it would seem by our own allies.
We asked the minister for two things: 1. Aid air drops to besieged Eastern Ghouta and other areas; 2. Tracking and publishing of radar information on the aeroplanes bombing civilians.
We need the UK to publish tracking data to hold Putin and Assad to account today, not just in the future. We need to hold them publicly accountable not just for chemical attacks, but for all attacks that target civilians. As long as we have no judicial body to hold them to account, we need the UK and others to present as much evidence to the public as possible, so that all the peoples of the world can demand their governments do their part.
On aid airdrops, feeding all 400,000 people under siege in Eastern Ghouta by air drops might not seem possible, but the UN did feed some 70,000 people in Deir Ezzor solely by airdrops from February 2016 to September 2017. The UN made over 300 airdrops to Deir Ezzor, including with precision guided JPADS parachutes.
The UN of course refused in 2016 to drop aid to areas besieged by the regime without explicit regime permission, despite all the countries of the ISSG calling on them to do so. The ISSG—the International Syria Support Group—included not just countries like the UK, US, and France; it also included Russia and Iran.
The UK promised at the time that it was prepared to join in dropping aid. On 31 May 2016, the UK Special Representative to Syria Gareth Bayley said:
“Air drops to deliver aid to all designated besieged areas remains a last resort. It is an expensive and complex way to deliver aid. But it is vital that we fulfil this commitment. The UK stands ready to do so.”
This promise on aid airdrops has not been kept by the UK Government.
Of course some feared that manned airdrops might be attacked. Would the Assad regime really have risked the consequences of such an act? After Russia and the regime were allowed to go unpunished for their murderous attack on a UN aid convoy in September 2016, one might well fear that they would.
There are three ways to avoid the risk of attacks on airdrops: One is to make a credible threat of decisive retaliation; another is to drop from high altitude as the UN did for Deir Ezzor; and a third is to use unmanned aerial vehicles—UAVs or drones.
UK and US officials discussed using drones and guided parachutes for aid in the last weeks of the siege of Aleppo, but then as ever they folded in the face of Assad and Putin’s violent aggression.
As recently as January and February, the UK Government was saying that it was still considering using drones for aid airdrops, and yet it stood by as civilians from one town after another were forcibly displaced by Assad, Hezbollah, and Russia.
From Wadi Barada. From Madaya. From Al Waer. Tens of thousands more Syrians were forced from their homes by starvation sieges while the UK did nothing.
Alistair Burt laments the failure to act in 2013. If we continue to stand by while Eastern Ghouta is starved and bombed—if we won’t even drop aid to the starving—how will we look back at this failure to protect civilians in 2017?
The UK’s ally Jordan is blocking humanitarian access to Syrians trapped in Rukban.
The UK and US have a military base a few kilometres from 50,000 trapped civilians.
As full ground access is denied, the UK should now work with aid agencies to airlift aid directly to the desert camp.
How is it that 50,000 people are trapped without aid in the Syrian desert when there is a Coalition military base right next door?
Rukban camp is located in the desert on the Syrian-Jordanian border, in an area known as the Berm. 50,000 Syrians live there, internally displaced people blocked from fleeing Syria by the Jordanian government, and blocked by the Assad regime and its allies from receiving UN aid inside Syria.
Camp residents report that water pollution, high temperatures, unsafe human waste disposal and garbage accumulation have led to major health issues such as diarrhea, fever, bronchitis, bowel inflammation, skin allergies and urinary infections.
Numbers of people at Rukban increased in September when pro-Assad Iranian-led militias advanced against Syrian opposition fighters, and another camp on the border, Hadalat, totally emptied out as people fled to Rukban. More recently, hundreds more have fled to Rukban to escape fighting in Deir Ezzor.
Rukban offers some safety from the Assad regime as it is near Al Tanf base, a military base used by the US and its allies, including until recently the UK, to train local Syrian anti-ISIS fighters. Rukban camp is 16 kilometres from the Tanaf border crossing.
It was at Tanf base that the BBC reported seeing UK special forces inside Syria in Summer 2016. After Russia bombed UK and US trained fighters at Tanf in 2016, the US negotiated a 55 kilometre deconfliction zone.
In 2017, Coalition forces defending the zone struck advancing Iranian-led pro-Assad militias, but allowed them to advance around it and reach the Iraqi border further east. Tanf base—and Rukban camp—are therefore now cut off from the rest of Syria by a pro-regime area of control held mainly by Iranian-led militias.
While the US and UK military regularly supplied their forces inside Syria across the Jordanian border, Jordan has closed that border for civilians.
When an alleged ISIS car bomb killed seven Jordanian border guards in June 2016, Jordan declared the Berm a closed military zone. No longer able to get access, UN agencies agreed a deal in late 2016 giving control of aid to the Jordanian military. Since then aid shipments have been sporadic.
Rukban now has the characteristics of a besieged community, trapped between Jordan’s military and pro-Assad militias. But it is a besieged community with a UK-US military base right next door. Rukban isn’t being bombed like Eastern Ghouta, but the UN clinic for Rukban regularly receives cases of acute malnutrition, including skeletal children.
The UK and US should be able to persuade their close ally Jordan to give reputable NGOs full access to Rukban. The UK and US are leading providers of humanitarian and development aid to Jordan, as well as of military aid.
If the UK and US can’t achieve an urgent and dramatic improvement in ground access, then Rukban is one place where there is no excuse for failing to fly aid in. Unlike other besieged areas in Syria, this area is defended by Coalition air forces. It can be accessed by flying either across the Jordanian or Iraqi borders—both Coalition partners. The UK could start delivering aid directly in days if not hours.
The UK’s excuses for failing to deliver air drops to Eastern Ghouta today, and to all the besieged areas that have fallen to Assad through 2016 and 2017, have been miserably weak. But in failing the 50,000 people trapped in Rukban, the UK has no excuse at all.
Syria Civil Defence, also known as the White Helmets, yesterday issued a statement on the current talks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in which they called for the implementation of international resolutions to be given priority over more talks. First protect civilians, because only then will a secure peace be possible.
Right: Alaa Addin Juha, Syria Civil Defence volunteer killed on Sunday 19 November by an Assad forces’ cluster bomb attack in the town of Hamouriya, part of the besieged Eastern Ghouta area in the suburbs of Damascus. Above: The funeral of volunteer Alaa Addin Juha.
On Saturday 18 November, a chemical attack targeted opposition fighters on the front lines in Harasta, Eastern Ghouta. Medical staff confirmed symptoms include vomiting, dyspnea, and pinpoint pupils, indicating a nerve agent was used.
The Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) reported that ‘a SAMS facility in East Ghouta began receiving patients suffering from constricted pupils, coughing, vomiting, and bradypnea (abnormally slow breathing), all of which are symptoms indicative to exposure to chemical compounds. The victims reported that they were exposed to a substance following an artillery strike. Of the 61 individuals exposed to the substance, 15 required hospitalization, including 11 who were admitting to SAMS facilities.’
Besieged Eastern Ghouta is home to about 400,000 people, and is currently suffering an escalation in regime attacks which is being compared to the disastrous assault on Aleppo city last year.
The SAMS report continues: ‘The situation in East Ghouta continues to deteriorate. According to the local health directorate, between Tuesday, November 14 and Friday, November 17, 2017, airstrikes and artillery strikes resulted in 84 casualties, including 23 women and children, as well as 659 injuries. Many of these attacks took place in residential areas, where the victims were primarily civilians, and where hospitals and schools were among the affected infrastructure. In addition, there are more than 450 individuals in need of urgent medical evacuation, more than 72 % of children under the age of five are in need of nutrition support. Medical supplies to treat illnesses such as cancer, diabetes, hemophilia and many other chronic diseases have long since run out.’
Eastern Ghouta has been declared a de-escalation zone by Russia, Turkey, and Iran, and opposition armed groups inside Eastern Ghouta have signed ceasefire agreements negotiated with Russia, but the Assad regime, apparently with full Russian support, is increasing attacks against civilians while continuing to restrict aid.
Russia’s ceasefires and de-escalation promises have proved worthless. Russia has shut off the UN route with its double veto. The only way to stop Assad using chemical weapons is to ground Assad’s air force, silence Assad’s artillery, by deterrence and targeted retaliation against regime military assets.
The UK failed the people of Eastern Ghouta in 2013 when Parliament voted against any response to Assad’s chemical weapons massacre. Will the UK again fail the survivors of that massacre in 2017?
The UK can and should act to end Assad’s chemical, air, and artillery attacks against civilians.
The UK can and should deliver aid to besieged areas using airdrops.
Assad’s air force just murdered three more White Helmets rescue volunteers
Mohammed Alaya, Mohamed Haymour, and Ahmad Kaeika; three White Helmets rescue volunteers were deliberately killed today when Assad’s air force targeted Syria Civil Defence in Douma, a neighbourhood in the besieged Eastern Ghouta suburbs of Damascus.
What’s happening in East Ghouta
Eastern Ghouta was one of the areas targeted by Assad’s August 2013 Sarin nerve agent attacks which killed between 1,200 and 1,700 people.
Since then, Eastern Ghouta has been under siege by the Assad regime. Around 400,000 people have lived under air and artillery attacks, the blocking of food and medical aid, the blocking of medical evacuations, as well as an end to free movement and the blocking of all normal commercial traffic.
From late 2014, smuggling tunnels connected East Ghouta to opposition-held neighbourhoods Qaboun and Barzeh, but these areas fell to regime forces in early 2017. Today, bread in East Ghouta costs 11 times more than in nearby Damascus.
In October, shocking images of malnourished children emerged. Obeida, an infant, died on 21st October. Sahar, a girl 34 days old, died on 22nd October, due to an intestinal infection and related acute malnutrition. Three year old Mohammad Abd al-Salem died on 27th October.
UNICEF estimate more than 1,100 children are suffering from acute malnutrition.
The SOAS Syria Society is hosting a discussion with Waad Al-Khateab and Dr Hamza Al-Khateab this coming Thursday evening.
Waad al-Khateab is a multi-award winning film maker who is best-known for her series of ‘Inside Aleppo’ films for Channel 4 News.
Dr Hamza al-Khateab is a Syrian doctor who moved to Eastern Aleppo in 2011. He was the director of the biggest hospital in then-besieged Eastern Aleppo before its fall at the end of 2016.
They were in one of the last convoys to leave Eastern Aleppo in December 2016.
My Last Days in Aleppo: With Waad and Dr Hamza Al Kateab
Thursday 2nd November, 7.30 to 9 pm.
Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre (BGLT), SOAS University of London, 10 Thornhaugh Street, London WC1H 0XG.
Existing models of drones provide readily available means to bring aid to besieged civilians, and at no risk to UK personnel. MPs should now demand answers as to why the UK Government flatly refuses to even try using drones to save the lives of Syrian civilians under siege.
Rwanda’s new delivery system for blood products uses fixed wing drones that are launched from a catapult and follow a pre-programmed course to drop a small package from low altitude into an area the size of two parking spaces. These Zipline drones carry a light load (1.5kg of blood) but higher capacity and longer range drones suitable for airdrops in Syria were identified over a year ago.
Airbridge Aviation, an Oxford-based British company, conducted an extensive comparison of options in January 2016 and selected the Arcturus T-20 as the most capable unmanned aircraft for humanitarian airdrops in Syria. The T-20 is a well-established UAV first developed in 2009 and used by the Mexican Navy and the Turkish government. It has a maximum range of 900 kilometres, carries a payload of 36 kilograms and has a proven airdrop capability. Like the Zipline drone used in Rwanda, the T-20 also launches from a catapult and doesn’t need a runway.
Using nine T-20 drones flying twelve hours a day at 50 nautical miles range (about 90 kilometres, or the distance from the Jordanian border to the suburbs of Damascus) Airbridge Aviation write that they could deliver around 1,800kg of aid per day, feeding 1,675 people their full nutritional needs.
All of this can be done without putting UK air crews at risk.
We earlier reported on JPADS, another option for airdropping aid cross border into Syria without UK aircraft entering Syrian airspace. These are GPS-guided parachutes that can fly 25 kilometres from where they’re released to a pre-programmed precise landing spot. The World Food Programme confirmed to us that they had used JPADS about 25 times to drop medical aid to regime held Deir Ezzor. The WFP has never airdropped aid to communities besieged by Assad or Hezbollah because they refuse to act without regime consent.
It is shameful that the UK and other states militarily engaged in Syria have effectively stood by as Assad and his backers have besieged, starved, and forcefully displaced entire communities. It is shameful that the UK and others have not used the means available to relieve the suffering of civilians subjected to this deliberate cruelty.
Airdrops in themselves won’t end the sieges. They won’t stop Hezbollah and Assad forces shelling and bombing besieged communities. But they can bring an end to the Assad regime’s veto on humanitarian aid. They can give civilians some relief and save at least some lives. And they would show that the UK is willing to match fine words of concern with at least some concrete action.
It is now over a year since Jo Cox and others first called for the Government to seriously consider humanitarian airdrops to people trapped in Madaya. As images of starving children led to mounting public pressure, the Assad regime and its Hezbollah allies let some aid into the town, but only some.
Currently Madaya has been without aid deliveries for over two months, despite the promises of the ceasefire declared by Russia and Turkey in December, despite multiple UN security council resolutions, despite years of negotiations by UN agencies with the Assad regime.
Even when the Assad regime has let UN aid through, these convoys have been intermittent and subject to severe restrictions.
In the period covered by the latest Siege Watch report, one UN interagency aid convoy managed to reach Madaya and Zabadani on 25th September. The shipment included basic food supplies and non-essential medical items, but lacked necessary goods such as fuel, critical medical supplies, protein, baby milk, and salt. Mirna Yacoub, deputy representative for UNICEF in Syria, who was part of the aid convoy, told the BBC that while there wasn’t the level of starvation seen in January, ‘they are malnourished, there is a severe lack of vitamins, they don’t have protein.’
Siege Watch reported that 27 kidney failure patients were trapped in Madaya by the end of October, unable to receive dialysis due to lack of supplies. Highly contagious bacterial meningitis is also widespread and there are no infant vaccines available.
In November, at least four children died of malnutrition related causes. At the end of November, some aid was let in, but has since again been blocked by Hezbollah and the regime.
Airdrops of medical and food aid to Madaya and other besieged areas can save lives. We know—Syrians know—that the UK has the ability to act, so let there be no more shameful excuses.
We have received the following distress call from civil society organisations in Wadi Barada:
For the 33rd day running, Assad regime forces, Hezbollah, and other militias have been attacking Wadi Barada despite a proclaimed ceasefire in Syria, which was announced on 30th December 2016. The human and material cost has been terrible.
200 people have been killed as a result of the military attack, 60% of them women and children.
400 people have been injured. 150 of these are in need of urgent medical evacuation.
45,000 people have lost their homes following intense bombardment of residential areas by the regime and its allied militias.
All hospitals and medical centres are inoperational after they were directly attacked by the regime and its allies. Two medical staff have been killed and six injured as a result of these attacks.
The Civil Defence system is also out of service, after all its operational centres and equipment were destroyed because of deliberate targeting.
There is a great deal of destruction throughout the villages of Wadi Barada, particularly Basimah and Ain al-Fijeh.
80,000 people are suffering as a result of continuous bombardment and siege. Food supplies are now so meagre that people eat only one small meal a day. Sometimes this meal only consists of one apple. Families have been forced to slaughter whatever livestock they possess for food. There is now a severe shortage of children’s milk. The situation is getting worse because the regime and militia checkpoints which completely surround Wadi Barada have not allowed any food in for a month and not allowed medicine in for over four months. If the military assault continues and the regime and its allies continue with this policy, this could well lead to starvation.
There is now an almost total lack of medicine, especially medicines to treat chronic conditions often suffered by older people, such as diabetes, heart disease, blood pressure, and blood disease. More than 20 people have died as a result of the lack of these medicines. The regime and its allies do not allow people to be evacuated from Wadi Barada for medical treatment.
Following the regime’s bombardment of the Ain el-Fijeh water plant, the water supply cannot be purified and is now polluted and people have contracted diseases from drinking impure water. Dozens of people now suffer from symptoms such as diarrhoea and vomiting. As a result of the destruction of homes, people have taken shelter in mosques, halls, and other spaces, and this has led to overcrowding and this has exacerbated the situation, further spreading disease. Infants are especially at risk. Two new-borns have died as a result of the inability of medical staff to provide adequate care and jaundice has spread among infants due to trauma and fear.
Due to the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe, we declare the whole of Wadi Barada a disaster area and we call on all humanitarian organizations, human rights organizations, the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly, and the international community to urgently intervene to save the civilians trapped in Wadi Barada, who are at the mercy of the rockets and mortars of the Assad regime and its allies and who are now facing the threat of disease and starvation.
Signed:
Relief Corps in Wadi Barada • Medical in Wadi Barada • Media Corps in Wadi Barada • Local Council in Wadi Barada • Civil Defence in Wadi Barada • Institution of Barada Al Kheir • Institution of Ghouth Barada
These GPS guided parachutes can fly 25km to a precise landing point.
UK refuses to use JPADS airdrops system to aid civilians under attack from Hezbollah and Assad.
The World Food Programme’s representative for Syria, Jakob Kern, has confirmed that the agency has used FireFly JPADS for aid airdrops to Deir Ezzor. Around 25 JPADS parachutes have been used to drop mostly medical aid to the regime held town which is besieged by ISIS.
JPADS airdrops form just part of the WFP effort: overall the World Food Programme has made 177 air drops in nine months to Deir Ezzor. The World Food Programme has never made a single aid drop to any territory besieged by the Assad regime or its Iranian-backed ally Hezbollah. The vast majority of besieged areas are under siege from the regime.
The particular advantage with JPADS is that the system uses GPS navigation to remotely guide the parachute to a precise landing point. The drop can be made by planes at a standoff distance 25 kilometres away from the impact point, and at an altitude of 24,500 feet above sea level, high enough to be safe from MANPADS surface to air missiles. This means that JPADS could be used to drop aid to areas besieged by Hezbollah by planes flying outside Syrian airspace.
In a December letter to NGOs, Prime Minister Theresa May contrived to ignore this fully viable safe option for helping civilians and for countering Hezbollah and Assad’s forced removal of populations.
The UK’s failure to deploy this available technology for the relief of besieged civilians helped speed their forced displacement from Aleppo city.
Assad and Hezbollah are now doing the same again in areas between Damascus and the Lebanon border, forcing out Sunni majority populations in order to replace them with people supportive of Hezbollah, Assad, and Iran. Western inaction on this is worsening the refugee crisis, and contributing to the entrenchment of Hezbollah—a proscribed terrorist organisation—across a wide portion of Syrian territory.
Theresa May’s refusal to act makes the UK complicit in Hezbollah’s campaign of ethnic cleansing in Syria.
For a year now, the UK Government has rejected calls for airdrops saying they are too dangerous and too difficult.
Safe options for airdrops are being ignored by Government ministers.
Technology for precision airdrops that would allow aircrews to safely drop guided parachutes from beyond Syrian airspace is already being used by UK allies in Syria—but these GPS guided parachutes are being used to drop arms, not aid.
A year has gone by since Jo Cox in the House of Commons first voiced the call for humanitarian airdrops to besieged Syrian communities. Back then it was images of clearly starving children in the town of Madaya that stirred MPs to speak out.
In the year since, the UK Government has been presented with a range of options for airdropping aid to Syrians under siege at little or no risk to British aircrews.
One option presented to the UK Government in the last year has been a detailed costed proposal for airdrops using existing drone technology. Another has been airdrops using precision JPADS technology which would allow some besieged areas to be reached by remotely guided parachutes dropped from outside Syrian airspace.
This week, USA Today reports on how these GPS guided parachutes are already being used by the Coalition against ISIS to drop arms to local allies inside Syria.
Gen. Carlton Everhart told USA Today of the US Air Force’s ‘expanded precision airdrop capability.’ The Air Force conducted 16 airdrop missions in Syria last year, including six in December.
The airdrop missions have changed dramatically since previous wars, such as Vietnam, when pallets would be easily blown off target, sometimes landing within reach of the enemy.
Today, the bundles are guided onto landing zones using GPS technology and steerable parachutes. ‘We'll get it within 10 or 15 meters of the mark,’ Everhart said. The supplies range from small arms ammunition to vehicles.
The Air Force can drop supplies at night and vary where they are dropped to ensure militants are not able to seize US equipment.
A leading manufacturer of JPADS technology describes how their system allows parachutes to be dropped from a standoff distance 25 kilometres away from the target and then remotely guided to the impact point using GPS navigation.
This ability to drop from a distance means besieged areas like Madaya—one year later still under siege by Hezbollah and Assad forces—could be reached by airdrops without aircraft ever having to enter Syrian airspace.
Over 140,000 people recently signed a petition calling on the UK to drop aid to besieged Syrian communities. The Government rejected the call and the Petitions Committee rejected a debate.
In a December 2016 letter on airdrops, Prime Minister Theresa May rejected them primarily on the grounds that aircraft would be risking attack by Russia. In words repeated in the Government’s rejection of the public petition, she then asserted that the same risk applied to unmanned options. Clearly this is nonsense. No aircrew lives are at risk if unmanned drones are used for airdrops, and if planes drop GPS guided parachutes from outside Syrian airspace, there can be no legitimate grounds for Russia to attack.
The UK Government set out two aims for its Syria strategy when MPs voted for action in December 2015: To defeat terrorism in Syria, and to end the refugee crisis. Today the Government is sitting on its hands while a proscribed terrorist organisation, Hezbollah, besieges Syrian civilians with the aim of driving entire communities from their homes. Continued UK inaction on relief to besieged communities will further empower and entrench terrorism, and further worsen the refugee crisis.
End the excuses. Drop aid to besieged Syrian communities now.
Report for Friday 13th January 2017: Regime signs ceasefire agreement and sends maintenance teams, and then resumes attacks, targeting the maintenance teams.
At 11 o’clock this morning the bombardment of Wadi Barada stopped. A ceasefire agreement had been reached allowing maintenance teams to enter Wadi Barada and displaced people to return their villages.
The people of Wadi Barada are determined to stay in their area and NOT to sign an agreement with the regime that would forcibly displace them from their homes and villages on green buses, as happened in various towns around Damascus.
However, the ceasefire agreement was broken only a few hours after it was signed. While the regime was negotiating the ceasefire, its forces stormed Wadi Barada. The opposition had announced that a ceasefire in Wadi Barada was a precondition for its participation in peace talks in Astana. Wadi Barada is now facing an unknown fate and we ask that the opposition to announce the failure of the political process in response to the regime’s continued attacks in violation of the ceasefire. All talk of Russian pressure on the regime to stop the attack on Wadi Barada is false.
The following YouTube video shows the entry of maintenance teams to the area. However, the video also showed that tank shells landed on the village of Ain El-Fijeh, where the maintenance teams had arrived to repair the Ain El-Fijeh Spring, despite the signing of the ceasefire agreement.
In an interview, activist Abdel Qader Fahd said that regime forces directly targeted the maintenance teams, which the regime itself had sent, and bombed the villages of Ain El-Fijeh and Basimah and other areas of the Wadi Barada Valley. Fahd added that this was the second time the ceasefire was cancelled. The previous day, the team that the regime had sent to negotiate a ceasefire with rebels in Wadi Barada was also bombed by the regime side. Several militias are fighting alongside the regime, including the Lebanese Hezbollah militia. Fahd also said that regime forces had advanced in their assault on the village of Basimah.
A video uploaded later by Abdel Qader Fahd to YouTube shows the maintenance teams repairing the Ain El-Fijeh water plant while gunfire was heard in the background. In the video, Fahd says that the maintenance teams had resumed their attempts to repair the plant at 8pm despite the ongoing attack on Basimah and that the ceasefire agreement had been a trick to allow the regime to launch a surprise attack on Basimah. The maintenance teams have been directly attacked by the regime and one of their vehicles had broken down because of the gunfire it had sustained. The maintenance teams’ work is aimed at restoring the water supply to Damascus.
Warplanes and helicopters haven’t stopped bombing the villages of Wadi Barada since last night with barrel bombs and missiles. For the 21st day running the regime, Hezbollah and other militias allied with them have continued with their criminal assault on Wadi Barada, despite a ceasefire.
Since the early hours of the morning regime forces have targeted the villages of the area with heavy artillery, tanks, warplanes, helicopters, and rockets. They have tried to storm the area from the Kfeir Al-Zeit entrance.
Civilian homes have been bombed with IRAM and GRAD rockets and targeted by snipers and heavy machine-gun fire.
However rebels have resisted their advance and prevented them from making any gains. The regime used chlorine gas in Basimah, resulting in the injury of two people.
A 12 year old girl died and three other people were wounded in the village of Dair Qanoun as a result of the regime’s attacks.
One person was killed in Kfeir Al-Zeit as a result of intense sniper fire.
Russian helicopters dropped bombs on the village of Basimah in Wadi Barada on Thursday alongside regime helicopters. Regime helicopters carried out 30 airstrikes on Basimah and the outskirts of Ain Al-Fijeh village.
In what appears to be a new strategy, the regime is using two helicopters in every airstrikes. Each one drops four barrel bombs. Three days ago Russian helicopters started accompanying regime helicopters. Each helicopter drops six bombs at the same time and their bombs are bigger than the regime’s barrel bombs.
The regime’s warplanes bombed Ain al-Fijeh village on Thursday. Some of the strikes were directed at the Ain al-Fijeh Spring and the surrounding area as well as local houses. Some houses were completely destroyed.
The regime’s warplanes started bombing Ain al-Fijeh at six in the morning. At the same time the village was subjected to intense bombardment with artillery, tanks, and Gvodzika howitzers, as well as heavy mortars which fell on residential areas and farms in the village.
It’s important to note here that the regime’s “Military Media” network today broadcast for the first time scenes that it said were from the Ain El-Fijeh spring, the surrounding area, and the village of Basimah.
This comes 23 days after the beginning of the military assault on Wadi Barada, which has continued despite a proclaimed “ceasefire”. At the beginning of the assault the regime blamed those it called “terrorists” for blowing up the Ain El-Fijeh water plant and pollution of its water. However, the regime’s lies were exposed by videos broadcast by the Wadi Barada Media Centre, showing the regime’s rockets and barrel bombs falling on the Ain El-Fijeh, causing damage to the water plant which caused it to become completely inoperational. As a result, it has stopped supplying water to Damascus and the villages of Wadi Barada.
Omar Qantaqji, a young man resident in Ain El-Fijeh was killed today and seven other people were injured a result of an intensification of bombardment by regime forces, the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, and the Qalamoun Shield brigade on the villages of Wadi Barada.
From the early hours of the morning regime forces tried to advance from the entrance to the village of Basimah. Heavy artillery, tanks, IRAM surface-to-surface missiles, and heavy machine guns and sniper fire were all used. The rebels resisted their advance and there were violent clashes. The rebels managed to burn two tanks and damage a “Shilka” mobile anti-aircraft gun. After this the regime carried out more than 15 raids on the village with planes, helicopters and IRAM surface-to-surface missiles, as well as B10 heavy machine guns.
Regime forces also bombed Ain el-Fijeh village with heavy mortars, shells, and snipers also targeted the village. Like on every day, The Ain El-Fijeh Spring water plant was bombarded with shells and rockets, increasing the damage and destruction it has already suffered. Civilian houses were also damaged. Rebel snipers killed two regime troops who tried to advance on the Hawat Mountain overlooking Ain El-Fijeh.
There were also clashes between regime forces, Hezbollah, and Qalamoun Shield militia on one hand and rebels on the other around the villages of Kfeir Al-Zeit and Al-Husseiniya after an attempt by the invading forces to advance deep into these villages. However, the invaders were unsuccessful in making any significant advances after the rebels stopped them.
On a humanitarian level, the villages of the area have had no water, electricity, mobile or landline telephone service or Internet services for 20 days following the regime’s bombardment of infrastructure and vital facilities. Diseases are spreading after homes and mosques in relatively safe villages have become overcrowded with people and the medical authority in Wadi Barada says that the reason for this is that people have drunk unpotable water which has not been purified and have become in close proximity together as a result of the regime’s attack on the area.
Video: Regime forces and militias in the surrounding mountains of Wadi Barada.
The following report comes from Wadi Barada, an area between Damascus and the Lebanese border under siege by Hezbollah and Assad regime forces.
Wadi Barada is the source of the main Damascus water supply. On 23 December, as part of the attack on the area, the Assad regime bombed the Fijeh Springs, interrupting the water supply. See Bellingcat’s report here.
Hezbollah have a strategic interest in seizing Wadi Barada and other besieged areas between Damascus and the Lebanese border in order to secure supply their supply routes. See the APPG Friends of Syria report here.
The Hezbollah military is a terrorist organisation proscribed by the UK since 2008. It is supported by Iran and is allied with the Assad regime. Despite its status as a proscribed terrorist organisation and its role in besieging civilian populations in Syria, Hezbollah is not currently targeted by the UK’s counterterrorism action in Syria.
Wadi Barada attack by Hezbollah and Assad regime continues—no ceasefire in sight
By the Media Commission of Wadi Barada
Report from Sunday 8th January 2017, the 19th day of airstrikes on Wadi Barada.
Warplanes have continued their airstrikes on the villages of Wadi Barada for the 19th day running. These airstrikes have increased in intensity simultaneously with the escalating ground attack on several fronts around the area.
Since Sunday morning, warplanes have carried out intense bombing on the village of Ain El-Fijeh, and this was followed by clashes at the villages north-eastern entranceas regime forces tried once again to storm the village. Simultaneously, heavy artillery and rocket bombardment hit most of the residential areas and farms of Ain El-Fijeh.
The warplanes carried out 20 airstrikes on Ain El-Fijeh until the afternoon today. During this time and afterwards the regime continued to bomb the village with artillery, rockets, heavy machine-gun fire and sniper fire. This is ongoing. This has all led to widespread destruction as the warplanes have targeted buildings with rockets which cause heavy damage.
The warplanes also renewed their airstrikes on the village of Basimah around noon and bombed the village with artillery and IRAM rockets, also targeting it with heavy machine gun fire and artillery. This was followed by an attempt by regime forces to advance from the direction of the Basimah Valley intersection. Rebels managed to stop their advance. Regime forces and militia have made dozens of failed attempts to advance on Wadi Barada during their 19 day assault on the area.
In the past hour, approaching midnight, the regime has continued to bomb Basimah with 20 IRAM rockets as well as missile batteries, mortars, and tanks.
Clashes between revolutionaries and the regime’s Qalamoun Shield militia have renewed on the outskirts of the village of Kfeir Al-Zeit, at the Tallat Nahlah intersection, after regime militia tried to advance under the cover of heavy bombardment. Rebels managed to stop their advance and there have been reports that regime militia members have been killed and injured. The frontlines between the two sides remain unchanged.
The Lebanese Hezbollah militia resumed their attack southwest of the village of Al-Husseiniya, trying once again to storm it, under the cover of rockets and artillery. They did not manage to advance but the bombing led to the death of a young man as well as the destruction of houses in the villages.
Turning to the humanitarian situation, the regime’s bombardment and siege of Wadi Barada has led to the cutting off of all sources of food, medicine, and fuel to 100,000 civilians and the breakdown of essential services including electricity, water, communications, and the Internet.
The regime has used its cutting off of communications and the Internet to Wadi Barada to isolate it from the media and spread rumours and lies about negotiations, blaming those it calls “militants” for the explosion at the Ain El-Fijeh Spring and cutting off water to Damascus and claiming that they have prevented repair teams and equipment from entering the area.
These regime claims have backfired because video evidence and previous reports by the media authority have shown the regime’s direct targeting with rockets and barrel bombs of the Ain El-Fijeh spring. The regime has also stopped any negotiations and efforts to solve the water problem and it is completely responsible for what happened. It is also responsible for any potential disaster caused by its military assault on Wadi Barada.
On Monday 2 January, The Guardian published a report entitled ‘Hundreds of Syrians flee as Assad’s forces bomb Barada valley rebels.’ In its original version, the report quoted Rami Abdul Rahman, the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), as saying that the Wadi Barada area near Damascus was excluded from the recent ceasefire between the Assad regime and the rebels because the rebels in the area were from the ‘Fatah al-Sham Front.’ This was the exact same justification that the regime had used to continue its attempt to seize control of Wadi Barada, which is the location of an important spring supplying water to Damascus. The regime and its Russian ally have often used the presence of the Fatah al-Sham Front (formerly affiliated to Al-Qaeda and known as the Nusra Front) in a certain area as a pretext to break ceasefires and bomb civilian areas.
The Fatah al-Sham Front has not in fact been present in Wadi Barada since 2015. The local council of Wadi Barada and the medical, relief, and civil defence authorities in the area have issued a joint statement denying the presence of Fatah al-Sham. The statement describes the fighters in the area as ‘mostly affiliated to the Free Syrian Army, with the rest civilians who took up arms in self-defence.’ The Free Syrian Army in Wadi Barada also issued a statement on Monday calling on Turkey and Russia to ‘stop this clear violation of the ceasefire.’ It has also stated that it would suspend participation in the ceasefire if the attack on Wadi Barada continues.
Following publication of the Guardian article, the Takkad (Verify) website published a report quoting the Wadi Barada Media Centre directly refuting Abdul Rahman’s claims, and the Guardian article was updated to reflect this. It is indeed shocking that the head of a human rights organisation has effectively justified the Syrian regime’s breaking of a ceasefire agreement and bombardment of civilian areas. However Mr. Abdul Rahman and the SOHR have come under a great deal of scrutiny before.
Other Syrian human rights organisations which monitor casualties are much more transparent about how they gather data. The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), for example, publishes its methodology on its website and is open about its limitations. The Violations Documentation Centre (VDC) is also clear about its methodology. These Syrian organisations work with established international organisations and have been praised by Every Casualty, which campaigns for every casualty of armed conflict anywhere in the world to be documented, for their ‘impressive recording efforts.’
On the other hand, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights seems to have focused on being quoted in the media and appears to have been successful in that mission. They are now probably the most well-known Syrian human rights organisation. But a search of their website reveals that there is no information on their methods or how they gather information.
They have published information before which appears scarcely credible, claiming in December 2013 for example that deaths among regime soldiers exceeded deaths among rebels by a rate of approximately 2:1 and deaths among civilians by a rate of approximately 4:1. This was at a time when the regime had a monopoly on aerial power and heavy weaponry, was using it indiscriminately on civilian areas, and had already committed notorious massacres of civilians such as the ones in Banias, Houla, and Tremseh.
Mr Abdul Rahman, who lives in Coventry, has been the subject of an article by former French diplomat Ignace Leverrier, published in Le Monde in 2014. In the article, Leverrier notes that the SOHR did not publish any reports, doubts that it had a network of informants on the ground in Syria, as other human rights organisations do, and claims that SOHR is essentially a one-man operation. Leverrier also mentions that members of the Syrian opposition had suspicions regarding Abdel Rahman’s sources and his relationship with the Syrian government.
What is clear is that SOHR is a very opaque organisation. It is very strange that the media are effectively giving the word of one man based in the UK greater weight than those of local authorities, humanitarian organisations, and activists on the ground, without asking questions about his method, sources, and background. It is the responsibility of media organisations to make sure that their sources are credible. Other organisations, much more reliable than SOHR, are available to provide the media with information. RELATED READING
The following statement comes from local civil society and local government organisations in Wadi Barada. Wadi Barada outside Damascus has seen an escalation of regime attacks by the Assad regime and its allies in recent weeks, including bombing that has damaged water facilities supplying Damascus city. According to the UN, four million people in Damascus are now without mains water as a result of facilities being attacked.
We, the undersigned entities (civil societies organisations, local civil services entities, local activists, Syrian NGOs and local communities organisations) which are working in the towns and villages of Wadi Barada; declare the following:
The civilian and the above mentioned organizations felt optimistic once the cease fire agreement signed under the auspices of Russia and Turkey. We believed the bloodshed will reach to end in Syria in general and in Wadi Barada region in specific. But, unfortunately, the military campaign and offensive operations has not put its end by the regime’s army and its allied militias of Hizboullah the Lebanese militia and with a full support and guidance from Iran. This campaign is threatening more than one hundred thousand civilians trapped in the Wadi Barada region.
The civilians in this region are suffering from the absence of the basic necessities of life. The basic commodities are not accessing the local markets due to severe block of the main access roads. The physical security of the trapped civilians is vitally challenged due to continuous land shelling and air raids. These military attacks are not targeting fronts; rather, it is taking place randomly. The impact of the recent offensive operation is not against the civilians trapped inside Wadi Barada region, it is directly affecting the living conditions of 6 million civilians who are living in Damascus city. The populations in Damascus are suffering from shortage of water because the regime’s air forces have targeted the Fijeh Spring facility and put it out of service.
Although the delegation of the Syrian Free Army notified the Russian delegation of the importance of including Wadi Barada region in the cease fire agreement and recognising the agreement to include this region in the general agreement of the ceasefire, shockingly the regime’s troops and its allied militias among them Hizbollah resumed its aggression after the zero hour by dropping so far more than 35 explosive barrels against civilian areas. In addition, the Syrian regime’s air forces conducted so far 10 air raids against the villages and towns in Wadi Barada. Even more, the ground troops took several attempts to advance from different axes. It is worth to mention, that the defending armed opposition groups and the civilians are taking the most limited response in an attempt to maintain the ceasefire, which they believe it is an opportunity to bring peace to Syria.
The above mentioned entities assure that the regime’s allegations of targeting Fateh Asham bases and personnel are purely lies. The above mentioned entities and the armed opposition groups declare that Fateh Asham does not have presence in Wadi barada region. The Armed opposition group in the region is under the Abdal Asham, which is one of the Syrian Free Army fractions and local groups of people originated from Wadi Barada and who are holding weapons to defend their houses. All of these armed groups are not belonging or believing in Fateh Asham ideology.
We the people of Wadi barada and the above mentioned entities and the Armed Opposition groups operating in Wadi Barada who signed this document, we are calling sponsors of the ceasefire agreement (Russia and turkey) to assume their responsibilities and appealing to them for practicing the needed pressure against the regime and its allied militias for putting on halt the aggression and maintain the protection of civilians and respecting the ceasefire agreement.
We, the above mentioned entities and the armed opposition groups operating in Wadi Barada declare that once the ceasefire agreement is respected and all aggression operations among them ground and air operations are on hold against the civilian populated areas in Wadi Barada, we will work immediately on facilitating the entrance of the maintenance teams to the water facility in Fijeh Spring and allowing the accessories to access and we will make all the available efforts to assist the maintenance team for resuming the water supply to our people in Damascus city.
Finally, we call on representatives from the sponsoring states and the the United Nations organizations and the International Red Cross to enter the Wadi Barada valley to assess the humanitarian situation and facilitating the humanitarian access of the medical and other humanitarian assistance to affected people in Wadi Barada Region.
Signers:
Relief Commission for Wadi Barada and its neighborhoods
Medical Corps in Wadi Barada
Media Corps in Wadi Barada
Local Council in Wadi Barada
Civil Defense in Wadi Barada
Institution of Barada Al Kheir
Institution of Ghouth Barada
