The delegation of the Syrian Opposition Coalition (SOC) to the United States held a virtual meeting with IDPs near the town of Azaz in northern rural Aleppo to check up on their conditions and convey their voices to the United Nations.
Speaking via a video link, the SOC’s delegation talked with displaced people living in IDPs camps, including ex-detainees, people of determination, and mothers of fallen heroes and the missing.
The SOC’s delegation included President Salem al-Meslet, President of the Syrian Negotiations Commission (SNC), Anas Abdah, SOC’s Vice-presidents Abdulahad Asteipho, Abd al-Hakim Bashar, and Ruba Habboush, secretary of the political committee Abd al-Majid Barakat, member of the political committee Badr Jamous, the SOC’s representative to Washington Qutaiba Idilbi, and member of the SNC Fadwa Al-Ujaili.
Al-Meslet said: “We are communicating with you to convey your voice and demands to all the countries whose delegations we meet here at the United Nations.” He stressed that the SOC attaches great importance to the issue of detainees and the IDPs, especially in light of the immense suffering they are going through.
He also talked about the international meetings that the SOC is conducting on the sidelines of the 76th session of the UN General Assembly meetings with the aim of establishing new and binding international mechanisms to ensure bringing about political transition in Syria and removing the Assad regime. He stressed that this means solving the problem of refugees and IDPs in Syria.
The IDPs indicated that their main demands are to get rid of the Assad regime and return to their homes, stressing their utter refusal of any return under the authority of the Assad regime and the sectarian militias that forced them from their homes.
Residents of the IDPs also demanded increased support for the education and health sectors in the liberated areas as these sectors “affect our children, who are the hope and future of the new Syria.”
They also demanded the major actors in Syria to seek the release of detainees from the Assad regime’s prisons and disclose the fate of thousands of forcibly disappeared persons. A female ex-detainee spoke about the immense suffering they faced while in the custody of the Assad regime, stressing that ending the suffering of detainees’ should remain a top priority.
(Source: SOC’s Media Department)
