Column: New “achievement” for the UN in Darayya

Column: New "achievement" for the UN in Darayya

The train of systematic displacement, under UN patronage, has reached Darayya station. The international organization is completing its mission represented in forcefully uprooting residents from their areas. 

Activists from Darayya published many touching video footage showing how the residents of Darayya were forcefully leaving their city, according to an agreement between Assad regime and civil and military bodies in Darayya, after threats of annihilating the city. The deal was struck under the patronage of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, behind which is the UN and its envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, who gave tens of promises to allow aid in and stop aerial bombardment and barrel bombs on the city.

De Mistura’s representative, Khawla Matar, said, in an old video footage, that “The whole world is looking at Darayya. The whole world will allow aid to enter Darayya. The future of Darayya is for the better. Darayya is not forgotten.”

One day after De Mistura’s representative’s promise, the first aid convoy entered Darayya since 2012. It contained humanitarian aid without food aid.

The UN knew that Assad regime is targeting Darayya with barrel bombs on a daily basis. It further dubbed the city “the capital of barrel bombs,” according to Steven O’Brien Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator. O’Brien vowed in a UN Security Council session that “those responsible for dropping barrel bombs in Syria will be held accountable.”

As the mission of forcefully “emptying” the Daratta of its residents is underway, this was preceded by emptying the city of Homs, under the UN umbrella. Around 2,500 people were evacuated  from Homs’ old city quarters in deals brokered and organized by the UN.

The process of displacing al-Wa’er residents was also preceded by a similar process in Damascus countryside. About 135 people were taken away, with their families, from Qudsayya city to Idlib, in return for lifting the siege on Qudsayya, which has become home for displaced families.

 In the context of the UN-brokered displacement, we cannot but mention the famous agreement of Zabadani-Fou’a, whose main clause stipulated a malicious demographic change by transporting the residents of Zabadani and Madaya in Damascus western countryside to Idlib in return for allowing Fou’a town residents to leave heading to Damascus and Latakia countryside.

It is worthy to mention that the most important clause in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights issued by the UN, Article 13, stipulates that “Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State.”

So, the only thing that UN’s efforts were able to achieve after five years of war against the Syrian people is displacing the residents of some areas in Syria, even if that meant “treading” on the most important principles and constants.

The organization and its six bodies which are the Security Council, General Assembly, Trusteeship Council, General Secretariat, International Court of Justice, and the Economic and Social Council were all unable to stop the daily killing and bombardment with barrel bombs, missiles, napalm, and targeting the residential areas, hospitals, schools, medical and media centers.

The UN also failed in stop siege, blackmailing and starvation policies used by Assad regime and Shiite militias in Aleppo, Homs, and Damascus countryside, which caused the residents and opposition fighters in these provinces to eat grass and dead animals. Thus, the only salvation for them became leaving aboard the notorious “green buses”.

 


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