Press Conference
Khaled Khoja
President of the Syrian National Coalition
February 12, 2015
Ladies and Gentlemen,
For more than a week, the terrorist Assad Regime has waged a brutal military campaign on Douma in the Damascus suburbs, evidently with the aim of obliterating the rebel-held district.
As part of the scorched earth policy he has pursued every rebellious area since the start of the popular uprising, Assad has unleashed his terror on Douma using heavy weapons, war planes, and rockets against unarmed civilians. His vicious weapons have hit popular markets and residential neighborhoods, burning people alive and destroying what has remained of food and medicine the trapped civilians rely on in the besieged district.
Assad’s barbaric assault on Douma, which undoubtedly constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity, adds to his litany of atrocious acts on the Syrian people and his genocidal war represented in the besieging and starving up of civilians, most notably in East Ghouta and Al Waer district near Homs.
For the past two weeks, warplanes and heavy weapons have relentlessly pounded the besieged district of Douma, leaving 350 civilians, including 120 children and women, dead and injuring hundreds more, in addition to forcing thousands out of their homes. Buoyed by the lack of any response to his ferocious ongoing campaign on Douma, Assad has even since escalated indiscriminate attacks on rebel-held areas.
We therefore call upon the United Nations to recognizes the right of the Syrian people to live, and to take immediate action to salvage what has remained on Douma, just as they rushed to rescue the town of Ayn al-Arab (Kobae) from ISIS’s onslaught.
The Assad regime’s killing of children and the elderly with rockets, barrel bombs, and toxic gases is as a crime as horrible as ISIS’s slaughtering and burning of people alive.
Residents of besieged Eastern Ghouta and Al Waer district Homs have not asked for a military intervention or the forming of an alliance of 60 countries, but they are only asking for forcing Assad to stop the indiscriminate bombardment of their neighborhoods, to allow the opening of humanitarian corridors, to lift the stiffening siege imposed on them, and for enabling them defend themselves against the Assad regime’s brutal attacks.
Assad’s vicious campaign on Douma puts the Arab League, the United Nations and the Group of Friends of the Syrian people in front of their responsibilities towards the Syrian people who have been killed en masse at the hands of the Assad regime for over four years.
We also call on the heroes of the Free Syrian Army to relieve their comrades in Douma and Al Waer and to protect civilians from Assad’s vengeful attacks.
Victory to the Syrian Revolution.
Glory to the defenders of the dignity and freedom of the Syrian people.
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