Syria: Broken Nation

[LoveBeingAMuslimah]

I'm going to paste the links to the tweets without pictures so I can post more than 5 at a time:

From verified accounts and/or legitimate journalists who aren't yet verified:
Last week the last hospital in Daraya was incinerated by the Syrian regime—today, rebels surrendered. This is reminiscent of Ghengis Khan.

A week ago incendiary bombs had destroyed the last remaining hospital in Daraya, a symbol of the revolution against Assad.

Spoke to a teacher prepping to leave Daraya. She said everyone found out late last night they had to leave. "We feel like the Palestinians."

Just spoke to a woman in Daraya as she waited for evacuation. Through heaving sobs she described terror of what comes next, also exhaustion.

As for young men in Daraya who are civilians, they face the army draft if they surrender. That's why many will go to Idlib.

Spoke to an activist in Daraya. Says no one allowed to stay in their homes. Civilians will be sent to regime-held Damascus countryside towns

In response to someone saying 6k civilians will be evacuated and 2k fighters, with no one allowed to stay: This is what ethnic cleansing looks like

One of few towns where rebel fighters accept the authority of a civilian council, Daraya, a nascent democratic community, finally crushed

We just spoke to #Daraya city council member about decision to surrender: "Those who didn't live under siege can't judge how it looks like."

https://www.facebook.com/

Activist in Daraya crying and apologizing for leaving. Translation by the one who posted it: "Tomorrow the first group will quit, civilians and fighters: the civilians to Qodisa and Kouswa, fighters to Idlib after resolving the satiation. Forgive us, my friend, forgive us. All praises belong to Allaah. Forgive us."https://www.facebook.com/3z0ooz/videos/vb.100000153662481/1477367148945060/?type=2&theater

:'( Most of us against the regime don't judge you. Please don't explain yourselves or apologize. I, and the world in general, should be the ones explaining ourselves (though there is no excuse in the world to justify what has been done) and apologizing profusely for abandoning you. Those who supported your enemies should be the ones groveling at your feet and asking how they can fix what has been done.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/769141843430936576

Ethnic cleansing in action. The Sunni town of Daraya is being depopulated now after 4 years of massacres & siege

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/769181090657566721

#Darayya 15 buses while they are leaving to #Idlib #Darayya the Devastated city.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/769209132406759424

Unbelievable video Even the #birds are leaving #Daraya. No being on this planet wants to be under #Assad. #WorldFail

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/769188958454554625

Daraya then and now: 'Nothing is harder on the soul, than the smell of dreams, while they're evaporating.'

 

[LoveBeingAMuslimah]

On top of the targeting of hospitals, mosques, first responders (in double tap strikes), ambulances, residential buildings, aid convoys, marketplaces, and refugee camps, the regime/allies have targeted a funeral. Not just any funeral, but reportedly the funeral of the brother (and at least 12 others killed in that barrel bomb attack on 8/25: 11 children. ELEVEN.) of these two boys who are in despair and shock over his loss:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/769122199412305920

Two young boys grieve after losing their brother In a barrel bomb attack by Assad in #Aleppo. #Childhood in #Syria

Without the music (above video has much of the translation): "Oh the heartache. Oh brother. Oh my brother is gone."

This targeting of the funeral in east Aleppo today, 8/27, has killed at least 25. Source.

The status of the boys is unknown. I'm dumbfounded anyone with a shred of decency can support Assad after looking at this video or the countless other footage of his atrocities.

 

[LoveBeingAMuslimah]

More on the ethnic cleansing of the Sunni city of Daraya in this post from the past few days. They're not Yazidis, though, so move along; nothing to see here.

From verified accounts:

Today the evac of #Darayya begins. UN aid only once since siege, arrived early June. Heavy daily bombing since, hospital hit a week ago. Massacre in #Darayya four years ago this week. No jihadist presence, but punished heavily for its longstanding resistance to Govt. With no hospital and no aid and years of siege, the world's attention on #Aleppo and #Jarabalus, a deal was reached to hand over control. Likelihood #Darayya residents will all survive evac slim, even slimmer they will return. For many, feels like the end of the revolution. Absolutely inexcusable regime's starve and siege tactic was allowed to be enacted of people of #Darayya on the UN's watch. Few specific examples have felt more like a wholesale betrayal of #Syria-n people than what has been allowed to happen to #Darayya.

Greetings, all greetings, to the legendary steadfastness of the people from Daraya over five years...All the world conspiracies are against the Syrian people. They were left alone facing the irresistible alliance from hell. Words fail to describe the legendary steadfastness of the people fighting against the tyrants....All greetings to you, O Daraya

Not verified accounts (but some of them by Syrians themselves, including one whose uncle is still missing after being disappeared by Assad's regime) but still trustworthy:

#Daraya will always be the symbol of our revolution. Don't ask why they surrendered but ask how they resisted & survived all these years, No 1 came when Daraya pleaded for help. Shame on all of us & the cowards in the south. It's us who should be asking for forgiveness not them

#Darayya is lost. The besieged city fought off regime elite forces of 4th Division for 4 years. 1000s of Assadis were killed at its walls.

60barrel bombs per day+non-stop airstrikes+hundreds of Elephant missiles+CW attacks+thousands of mercenaries=fake victory for Assad #Darayya

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/769626624983764993

This 70 year old man leaving #Daraya has done more for #Syria than the whole United Nations.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/769144989901283328

Goodbye

Unbelievable video Even the #birds are leaving #Daraya. No being on this planet wants to be under #Assad. #WorldFail

"They will be back and so will we."

 

[LoveBeingAMuslimah]

Continued coverage on Daraya: what happened is far more important than the level of interest displayed here. But that is the genocide in Syria summed up so no surprise there.

Official and/or verified accounts (or unverified accounts of journalists):
#UN & #RedCross couldn't help the sick & hungry in #Daraya for 4 years. Now they are helping to empty the city for Assad regime. #Syria

Its true that in 4 yrs only 1 aid delivery was made 2 besieged people of #Daraya But here they are ready to evacuate

Regime butchered, starved and bombed them for 4 years. Kneel or starve at work.

Lesson from #DARAYA for #Assad: 1. Snipe people 2. Bomb their homes 3. Starve them for years 4. Napalm their hospital 5. Get what you want.

Terrible messages coming from #Daraya re: idea of surrender/deal. 'I dont want to go. I want to die here,' a distraught young man tells me. 'They want us to surrender tomorrow," he says. "Darn (edited by LBAM) all the world, if I knew democracy was a lie I wouldnt have demanded it" #Daraya #Syria
https://twitter.com/hashtag/Syria?src=hash

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/768832562735288320

Here's a little bit of a report we did on @Lateline 4 days ago about a young mum in #Daraya describing life there

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/769414509907812352

ICYMI --- Friday #Syria Daily: #Darayya Surrenders After 45 Months

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/769152576038309888

Civilians packing up & leaving #Darayya, after years of brutal siege. Some visiting relatives’ graves for last time.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/769091317917966336

Vukovar 1991. Darayya 2016. We have learned nothing.

https://www.facebook.com/

The straw that broke the camel's back was the bombing of the last and only field hospital in Daraya being hit by a barrel bomb (w/napalm) (along with their crops being destroyed). This video, in English, shows us the aftermath 3 days later.

To be continued even if nobody cares....

 

[LoveBeingAMuslimah]

Continued (about Daraya)...

last day in Daraya Besides Church of St. Paul

Speaking of the churches in Daraya, "As Hind Kabawat, one of the negotiators in the Geneva peace talks writes: The church bells rang in Daraya in solidarity with the protesters. From their balconies in the narrow streets, Syrian Christians showered protesters below with rice and flowers. They marched hand in hand."
Daraya: the town that shames the world

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/769097929097445378

#EthnicCleansing Some of the #Daraya civilians which the Assad regime said never existed waiting to be evacuated

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/769120870052790273

The leaving of the civilians has just began. #Daraya

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/769092221610127361

#Civilians of #Daraya are preparing to be evacuated to the western countryside of #Damascus

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/769088798441476098

The #exodus. #Daraya

 

[LoveBeingAMuslimah]

More on Daraya. I know this is now a few days old but ethnic cleansing in the midst of a genocide is pretty major news and needs to be documented even if people want to bury their heads in the sand. This is far more important than not standing up for the pledge of allegiance, a gorilla, and a lion. Assad's/allies' crimes are more devastating than the attacks in Belgium, Germany, and France thousands of times over but it doesn't get as much attention or condemnation because the perpetrator is a "secularist" who is targeting Sunni Muslims instead of a Sunni Muslim targeting "secularists" or non-Muslims.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/769199746808504320

#Syria: more photos of people leaving #Darayya as part of the regime-rebel deal

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/769251376195072000

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/769602014724710400

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/769644546129092609

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/769157563942395905

All respect to the heroes of #Darayya, who humiliated Assad militias for 4 years, before leaving with their arms

 

[LoveBeingAMuslimah]

"This week, those who clung to life for years in shelters under the rubble of Darayya, and who left over the weekend, spoke to Syria Direct’s Hussam Eddin, Bahira al-Zarier and Israa Sadder.

Here, 5 people who left Darayya, two of whom are related to Syria Direct reporters, share what they chose to take with them, and what they left behind."

Fadi Muhammad, a citizen journalist from Darayya, currently in Idlib province.

'I left a jug of water dripping on a plant that I took care of for four years. I saved the plant from under the rubble of a house bombed by the regime. I cared for it until it became green again. Every day, I would tell it ‘good morning,’ as though it were a close friend.

When I went, I left it with what water I could, so that it stays alive, in the hope I will return before it dries out and shrivels. I have a great hope of returning to my city and driving out those who occupied it.'

Umm Mayas, 29, a widowed mother of two: Mayas, 7, and Muadh, 4. Her husband, an FSA fighter, was killed by a barrel bombing in 2013. She is currently in a reception center with her children in Harjaleh, a regime-held town roughly 12km southeast of Darayya. [snipped]

'Alongside many of my neighbors, I burnt my furniture, so the regime won’t steal and sell it. I only took my children’s clothing, some suitcases. I cried bitterly while burning my furniture, because I was leaving my town, where I was born. And I wished I had died before this day.

My daughter, Mayas, was taking her doll. But when I told her we wouldn’t return to Darayya, she left the doll in the house, telling it: Stay at home where it’s safe. There won’t be barrel bombings or missiles on Darayya, protect it from the strangers.

I started crying then, with my whole heart, because my daughter is really attached to her doll, and she left it to protect Darayya.'"

Read more here: Afterword: 5 stories of love, loss and leaving Darayya

 

[brinny]

Speaking of Syria, i just saw this video.

Precious.

 

[joshua 1 9]

I think I'm at the point where Obama is possibly more disgraced in my eyes than Bush.

Obama has a choice to provide humanitarian aid or to arm and train the rebels. He made the wrong choice. To provide military aid for the rebels is a choice to fight russia and that is the wrong choice to make.

 

[LoveBeingAMuslimah]

Again, I know this is a week old but this was a significant event and future generations can use this to (not) learn from it like we learned (not) from the lessons from ethnic cleansings and genocide in the past.

Darayya is a key win in the regime’s campaign to besiege and subdue the last rebel pockets within this area. The government’s victory in Darayya is a validation of this strategy, signalling that the regime—with no one willing or able to stop it—is still capable of outright victory on its most vital home territory, however long it takes and whatever the human toll....“The international community won’t be able to do anything,” he went on. “Humanitarian organizations won’t be able to get you food or water. [The regime] will keep bombing you, and even if the city is totally destroyed and everyone is killed, no one will answer [your calls for help].”
Syria’s Rebels Lose a Symbolic Stronghold

From verified and/or official accounts:

We've all failed the people of #Daraya. It's really sad to think about what they went through, @NRC_Egeland #Syria

1) Let me tell you some stories about #Darayya..2) In 2003 the regime detained 24 nonviolent activists from #Darayya b/c they participated in a silent protest against US invasion of Iraq. 3) Some of them were imprisoned for 3-4 years. Many of them spent months in solitary confinement. Yahya Shurbaji was one of them. #Darayya. 4) During 2006 Israel–Hezbollah War, Darayya ppl hosted thousands of Shia Lebanese refugees. Same ppl now accused of being Takfiris. 5) I volunteered then in a school in Darayya to host the refugees. Many families from Darayya hosted the Lebanese refugees in their homes. 6) When the revolution started in 2011, Darayya set an example for nonviolence and creativity in peaceful tactics. 12)In August '12, regime encircled,stormed Darayya &killed more than 400.They say every family had someone to mourn 16) The regime encircled Darayya in 2012 and just ONE aid delivery has reached the town since THEN.(Pic March 2016). 17) The regime dropped thousands of barrel bombs over Darayya. Sometimes 60/day. 19) In the last weeks, the regime/Russia started to hit Darayya with Napalm bombs. 24-last) Darayya is a wound that won't heal in Syrian society for decades.But its story will be inspirational for many Syrians & non Syrians

From accounts that aren't verified but are of trustworthy Syrians:

Since we Syrians exist only to record history, today was one of our saddest. Today, after 4 years, kneel finally won over starve. Daraya was the cradle of the peaceful resistance years before the revolution even began. #Daraya was the home of activists Ghiyath Matar and Yehya Shurbaji. It is the site of a massacre that killed over 700 people in 4 days. #Daraya fought the regime with roses & water. They were left alone to fight the tanks & siege. Its people are too good for this ugly world. God bless the people of #Daraya who resisted as long as they could before surrendering to save their children. We will never forget.

A protest in Daraya just a few days prior to the ethnic cleansing:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/768211238170030080

Where are you WHO?

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/768211555511042048

5th year - UN has done nothing so far

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/769093092154671104

A group of fighters to be evacuated with their families to #Idib under the protection of #UN & #Redcrescent #Daraya

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/769321597152878592

After four years of protests, destruction and barrel bombs, the siege of Daraya, Syria, is finally ending.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/770559245641220096

#Daraya have been & will always remain an icon of the revolution; People of Daraya will return back free

 

[Landon Caeli]

I dont understand hashtags or twitter, but it appears Sunnis are packing upnand leaving a city in Syria... Where are they going?

 

[LoveBeingAMuslimah]

I dont understand hashtags or twitter, but it appears Sunnis are packing upnand leaving a city in Syria... Where are they going?

The city they were leaving was majority Sunni; its inhabitants have been besieged for 4 years and have been attacked by indiscriminate weapons (including napalm) in residential areas constantly in an effort by the Assad regime to get the people to either surrender or starve/blow apart/burn to death.

Some of the residents went to rebel-held Idlib whereas others went to other areas in regime-held Damascus where they will await resettlement (if they know/have anyone in other places). No one was allowed to remain. It was ethnic cleansing through and through in an effort to change demographics.

 

[joshua 1 9]

It was ethnic cleansing

You have 1500 by 1500 miles and you can not find a place for everyone to live in peace?

 

[LoveBeingAMuslimah]

You have 1500 by 1500 miles and you can not find a place for everyone to live in peace?

As his supporters say and scrawl on walls, it's "Assad or we burn the country," and if they can't get that, then at least they want to get the best and most convenient lands for themselves before partitioning it even if it means ethnic cleansing and genocide.

 

[LoveBeingAMuslimah]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/769242539035594754

Heartbreaking video today as civilians evacuate #Daraya Everyone looks so scared... #Syria

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/769556808864333824

#Daraya now is completely empty of its #people, its a ghost city, a city under #Assad control. End of Story.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/769548218585714688

#Daraya is now officially empty of its residents, LAST convoy just left Pic shows #Assad militias rushing to loot

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/769263259446865920

23) The Syrian army dancing and celebrating over the ruins in Darayya today.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/771340140379836417

Liberation of Darayya by Assad!

The regime and its allies are ever so classy, aren't they? After indiscriminate napalm and barrel bomb attacks, all the while starving the population, they loot the ethnically-cleansed city's former inhabitants' possessions. This is why many residents of Darayya burned the furniture they weren't taking with.

Umm Mayas, 29, a widowed mother of two: Mayas, 7, and Muadh, 4. Her husband, an FSA fighter, was killed by a barrel bombing in 2013. She is currently in a reception center with her children in Harjaleh, a regime-held town roughly 12km southeast of Darayya. [snipped]

'Alongside many of my neighbors, I burnt my furniture, so the regime won’t steal and sell it. I only took my children’s clothing, some suitcases. I cried bitterly while burning my furniture, because I was leaving my town, where I was born. And I wished I had died before this day.
Read more here: Afterword: 5 stories of love, loss and leaving Darayya

 

[joshua 1 9]

As his supporters say and scrawl on walls, it's "Assad or we burn the country," and if they can't get that, then at least they want to get the best and most convenient lands for themselves before partitioning it even if it means ethnic cleansing and genocide.

From what I understand there are many ethnic groups in Syria, so what makes them think they are so special? What evidence do they have this this is the land that God gave to them?

 

[joshua 1 9]

Heartbreaking video today as civilians evacuate #Daraya Everyone looks so scared...

You make it sound so apocalyptic, the exact scenario that people have been talking about for over 100 years. Syria, Libya, Iraq we see city after city destroyed. A lot of it I think has to do with Obama's choice to arm and train the rebels when the extent of his involvement should be to provide humanitarian aid. Even he would not listen to his own advisors in the whitehouse.

 

[LoveBeingAMuslimah]

From what I understand there are many ethnic groups in Syria, so what makes them think they are so special? What evidence do they have this this is the land that God gave to them?

Sunnis (the ones being targeted in the genocide and ethnic cleansing - almost all of the rebels are Sunnis trying to protect the civilian Sunnis from the regime) form the majority of the Syrians. Alawites (to which the Assad regime and most of the elite units in the army belong) form a minority. The other minorities are Christians and Druze. But it is the majority being systematically targeted. They're generally Arab. The other notable ethnic groups are Kurds, Syrian Turkmen, and Armenians.

Anyway, Assadists aren't a very reasonable bunch as is clear from this genocide.

You make it sound so apocalyptic, the exact scenario that people have been talking about for over 100 years. Syria, Libya, Iraq we see city after city destroyed. A lot of it I think has to do with Obama's choice to arm and train the rebels when the extent of his involvement should be to provide humanitarian aid. Even he would not listen to his own advisors in the whitehouse.

No, a lot of it has to do with the international community turning a blind eye to Assad's and his allies' crimes, letting them go unpunished. If Obama had actually backed up his false bravado when Assad broke the red line Obama set by using chemical weapons, the extent of this destruction could have been avoided. Instead, he is seeking to come to a "diplomatic solution" with one of the main countries that is committing crimes against humanity in Syria (i.e. Russia), avoids assigning blame to Russia for its crimes, gently scolds Assad for his crimes, and threatens rebels to not advance into regime territory.

The Pentagon is generally against the way Obama has handled Syria saying what has been obvious to most people who aren't idiots; Assad is the biggest problem and if he is not dealt with, there will be no peace in Syria.

 

[LoveBeingAMuslimah]

Aleppo is besieged again after a crazy influx in airstrikes targeting Ramouseh road. It seems all of the gains the rebels made last month have all but been lost.

"The siege crept up almost without notice over the past 10 days, as the regime closed the Alramousa road, the sole supply route into the old town, first by intense bombing and then by targeted missile attacks just weeks after a surprise rebel offensive had opened it.

...The worst terror in Syria is not from Islamic State extremists or the Al Qaeda affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra (which recently split from Al Qaeda and changed its name to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham), but from state-sponsored attacks on civilians, backed by Russia."

Assad Regime to Besieged Aleppo: Surrender or Starve

May God grant them patience, strength, and glad-tidings of imminent victories despite the seemingly bleak outlook. May Allaah and our religion always be sufficient for them even when the entire world turns their back on them and/or participates in their slaughter.

 

[LoveBeingAMuslimah]

^I should clarify that it's not all gains. It's just enough for eastern Aleppo (with 300k people) to be besieged again.

Here's some information that is a bit uplifting (the part about what could happen if Turkey keeps making HUGE gains in northern Syria and an attempt to free Aleppo would be made from both north and south, obviously not the part about the US-Russian deals):

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=923590924433986

Aleppo "re-besieged"

And it's also comforting to know that "after 9 attempts and heavy losses, Iranian, Iraqi and Lebanese militias supported by intense Russian strikes took over the artillery school."

Meaning 5 countries are directly involved in this and still it took so much out of them (and time) to besiege Aleppo again from a group of rebels with far inferior weaponry.