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Death Toll: 105 Killed Today, 65 Yesterday
The Local Coordination Committees in Syria documented 65 people killed yesterday, while 105 people were killed as of 6:00 pm of today. Deaths were cited as: 90 in Aleppo, 6 in Damascus, and 4 in Dara’a. (Source: Local Coordination Committees)
Assad’s Barrel Bombs kill 90 civilians in Aleppo
90 civilians, including women and children were killed when Assad’s helicopters dropped barrel bombs on Alhaidariya, Ard al-Hamra, Tariq al Bab, Sakhour, Kadi Askar, the industrial city, and Sheikh Najjar in Aleppo. Moreover, the number deaths in the neighborhoods Alhaidariya and Muyassar rose to 16. The latest massacres came after the snowstorm abated, which helped reduce air strikes on cities and provinces of Syria. (Source: Syrian Coalition)
FSA Repel Assad’s Air Force in Adra Northeast of Damascus
The Free Syrian Army repelled Assad’s warplanes in Adra Ommaliyah in northeast of Damascus with anti-aircraft machine guns. A number of civilians were killed by surface-to-surface missiles that were fired by regime forces in the town of Dummeir in rural Damascus. In addition, a woman and her child were killed in the city of Douma by regime artillery shelling. (Source: Syrian Coalition + Local Coordination Committees)
Air Raids On Rural Dara’a
A number of civilians were badly injured by aerial shelling on the towns of Inkhil and Dael in rural Dara’a. Regime artillery pounded the neighborhoods of Dara’a al Balad and the town of Al Hirak, alongside clashes between the Free Syrian Army and the regime forces. Regime forces laid siege to the city of Izraa’ after the FSA took control of two regime battalions near the town. (Source: Syrian Coalition + Local Coordination Committees)
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Cronies of Bashar Assad Have Duped European Governments
Britain has decided to tighten sanctions on the Syrian regime after it discovered that Bashar al-Assad and his associates duped European governments into releasing hundreds of millions of euros from frozen bank accounts. “The UK has closed a loophole in EU-Syria sanctions to prevent the release of millions of euros of assets belonging to the Assad regime and its affiliates,” British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Saturday, according to the Sunday Times. Hague said that “hundreds of millions of euros” would no longer be available to “fuel Assad’s war machine.” The cash – which had been frozen across the European Union since the beginning of the war – was diverted by Assad’s regime to feed his army instead of war’s starving victims as it pretended. “The evidence is clear that the regime and its financial backers will use every opportunity available to them to serve their own ends – war and profit – rather than help Syrians in serious need of humanitarian help,” Hague added. Under the new sanctions plan – to be implemented this week – only the United Nations will be allowed to unfreeze assets for humanitarian purposes. British officials have received several requests in 2013 from European and Syrian companies to unfreeze assets needed for humanitarian purposes. All requests were rejected by the British Treasury, but a November report showed how sanctions had been unlocked elsewhere, according to Reuters. International preparations for the transfer of 500 tons of chemical weapons. A Danish and a Norwegian frigate are anchored in the Cypriot port of Limassol awaiting orders to sail for Syria and help collect part of the regime’s deadly chemical arsenal. When the call comes, they will escort two cargo ships – one from each country – to Syria’s Latakia, where they will take on chemical agents, as set out in an Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons road map. Under the plan, the ships must leave Syria before December 31. Commander Torben Mikkelsen, the Danish naval officer leading the task force, is busy preparing for the delicate operation. ‘My job right now is to prepare this task group, capable of transporting chemical agents out of the port of Latakia in Syria, to a so-far not identified destination for ongoing further destruction,’ he said. ‘The transport of chemical agents on this scale, it’s historic,’ he said, while adding that the task force was ‘well trained and well prepared’. The two cargo ships will carry a combined total of 500 tons of chemical agents, said Bjorn Schmidt, a Danish civilian chemical expert taking part in the mission. (Source: Al Arabiya)
US Allocates $70 Million for Syrian Refugees in Iraq
The U.S. government said it would allocate more than $70 million USD in humanitarian aid to the Syrian refugees in Iraq, mostly living in camps in the Kurdistan Region. The U.S. decision was announced by Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration Anne C. Richard during her visit to the Kourkosk camp for Syrian refugees in Erbil. Richard said in a press conference that her country is one of the largest donors to implement programs of the United Nations through their organizations. It also commended the humanitarian assistance and facilities offered by the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq to the refugees in various camps, stressing that she visited many refugee camps in a lot of countries in the region but did not observe “the same positive things provided by the Kurdistan Regional Government.” Richard said also that it is not easy for any person to be a refugee and that it reassures everyone that the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq “offers much aid and facilities.” For his part, the governor of Erbil said that after the wave of mass immigration from the Kurdish areas in Syria in August, the camps of Syrian refugees in the region, with the exception of Daret Shkran camp, “are not at the required level; because they were set up hastily and it was not possible to organize them well.” Hadi said the Kurdistan Regional Government is working “in cooperation with the UN organizations and donor countries, notably the United States, to organize the camps better especially since it is expected that the Kurdistan Region will continue to receive a large number of refugees due to the worsening situation in Syria.”
Italy to Help Lebanon to Support Syrian Refugees
Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta said after visiting Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon that Italy will increase its aid to them by offering $15 million dollars, noting that his country “works on two levels in the refugees, first through the United Nations and the second through the European Union.” He revealed, during a meeting with Lebanese officials in Beirut and after visiting Italian forces operating within the UNIFIL in South Lebanon, that Italy will host a conference to coordinate international support for the Lebanese army and security forces early next year, as well as its willingness to train the Lebanese armed forces as well. The Italian official expressed hope in “finding a solution to the situation in Lebanon,” stressing his country’s full support for the Lebanese institutions and work to strengthen ties with them. In a meeting with the Lebanese President Michel Suleiman in the presence of an Italian delegation and the Italian Ambassador Giuseppe Morabito, the two sides stressed the need for continuing to provide a strong and coordinated international support for Lebanon in the areas of strengthening stability and boosting the economy. The two sides emphasized the importance of the international community’s commitment to the principle of burden-sharing on the subject of Syrian refugees. The sides emphasized the importance of strengthening the capacity of the Lebanese armed forces as an institution that fully embodies the unity of the state and ensures the maintenance of security. (Source: Al Sahrq al Awsat)
UNICEF: Deterioration Of The Level Of Education Of Syrian Children Is The Worst And The Fastest In The History Of The Region
UNICEF released a report shows that the deterioration of the level of education of Syrian children is the worst and the fastest in the history of the region. The report said that since 2011” around three million Syrian children were forced stop education because of the fighting which destroyed their schools, and left them in horror, and many families were forced to flee out of the country.” According to the report, “the events that took place in the three years prior halted the progress in education that was achieved over the past decades.” According to a statement by the UNICEF, this study is the first of its kind “that looks into the extent of the large decline in the levels of education in a country where the primary school enrollment levels stood at 97% before the start of the conflict in 2011.” The statement added: “The 1000-day long conflict made millions of children lose their education, schools and their teachers. At best, the children get intermittent education, while the less fortunate are forced to leave the school and work to support their families.” The study mentions that one out of every five schools in Syria have become unfit for use, either because they have been damaged or destroyed or become a shelter for internally displaced persons. The study also pointed out that in countries that host the Syrian refugees between 500 thousand to 600 thousand Syrian refugees children are out of school. It also pointed out that the most affected areas in Syria in terms of education are those where most of the violence, including Raqqa, Idlib, Aleppo, Deir Ezzor, Hama, Daraa and Damascus. In some of these areas attendance rates in schools decreased to 6%. The statement pointed out that Syria was before these two years “a pioneer in the region for rates of children’s education, but in the past three years it sharply.” The study detailed some of the factors that contributed to the leak of those students in a rapid pace, such as extreme violence, displacement, the deaths of many of the teachers. The study quoted many parents who said they have no choice but to keep their children at home rather than risk sending them to school. As in neighboring countries, the differences of language and dialect and curricula, and the lack of space allocated to education, poverty, and lack of physical safety and community tensions, made children stay away from school. At the same time, children and teachers in the host communities suffer from overcrowded classrooms and increased pressure on education systems. The study made a number of proposals, including decisive action to halt the rapid deterioration in education, including the protection of education infrastructure inside Syria, including stop using schools for military purposes, and the declaration of schools as safe zones, and to hold accountable the parties that violate it. The suggestions also include the doubling of international investment in education in the host countries in order to increase and improve education places, hiring additional teachers, reducing the costs of classes, preparing curricula to provide the educational needs of Syrian children including the recognition of certificates they receive, expanding the use of educational models that have proven their usefulness, such as giving classes at home, and the establishment of centers for non-formal education, and child-friendly spaces that provide them with psychological support. (Source: Syrian Coalition + Al Sahrq al Awsat)
France Casts Doubt on the Success of Geneva 2
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has said he has little hope for planned peace talks over the Syrian conflict. Mr Fabius said France was working on making the talks scheduled for next month in Switzerland a success, but that there was “a great deal of doubt”. The moderate anti-government groups which France has been working with were “in serious difficulty”, he said. The opposition has said any political solution to the crisis must include the removal of Mr Assad. It remains unclear who will take part in the conference in the Swiss town of Montreux on 22 January, with reports emerging last week that representatives of more than 30 countries wanted to attend. Speaking at the World Policy Conference business meeting in Monaco, Mr Fabius said he was “sadly quite pessimistic” about the prospects for peace. My fellow European ministers and I are working on the success of [Geneva II], but we can have a great deal of doubt on that. If sadly it isn’t successful, that would mean this martyred country will continue to suffer as will its neighbors,” said Mr Fabius. He said that while President Assad “has a lot of faults, he is not an idiot” and that France “can’t see why he would hand over all his powers”. “As for the opposition that we support, it is in great difficulty,” he added. Fabius’s comments come just days after London and Washington announced they would suspend non-lethal aid to Syrian opposition after the Islamic Front for took control of an important border crossing with Turkey and the headquarters of the FSA and its weapons warehouses. (Source: Al Jazeera)
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