Foreign Ministry: O’Brein’s Statement on Daraya Indicates Lack of Knowledge about Situation There

DAMASCUS, (ST)- The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates has criticized the misleading statement issued by the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Stephen O’Brien on the situation in Daraya and on the Syrian government’s recent  evacuation of civilians from the city.

The ministry stressed that the statement indicated that O’Brein either lacks knowledge about the situation in Daraya or he has been misled by some parties about what really happened in the city.

In a letter to O’Brein in response to his misleading statement, the ministry stressed that the statement has stirred angry reaction in Syria especially among the civilians who were saved by the Syrian government from the hell of the armed terrorist organizations in Daraya and who were taken to safe places within the framework of an agreement between the government and the armed groups in the city.

 According to SANA, the ministry found it odd that O’Brien repeated in his statement what was stated by the routed militants or by the sides which saw their defeat in what happened in Daraya.

It asserted that some UN General Secretariat officials and the international public opinion are being subjected to unprecedented attempts of disinformation on what is happening in Syria in general. This was clear through O’Brien’s office’s claiming that over 4000 civilians had been there in Daraya, whereas the right number was only 492, the ministry said.

Commenting on the talk in O’Brien’s statement which claimed that some of the people in Daraya had been having grass for food, the ministry’s letter said “the blame for that, if it was true and not part of the propaganda, lies not with the Syrian government, but with the terrorists whom you have exonerated of all the crimes they committed in Daraya to defame the Syrian government.”

The letter reiterated that the civilians who left Daraya were 492 men, women and children, while the gunmen numbered 1200, along with their families, stressing that those who were evacuated from Daraya were all in good health condition, which could have been verified by O’Brien’s office in Syria.

“The humanitarian aid that had been sent to the 4000 civilians you claimed were present in Daraya was actually being sent, as we later found, to the terrorists and criminals there, just like in other Syrian cities,” said the letter.

H.M