Baladi News – (Private)
A strange and shocking statement was released on Friday by the United Nations. UNHCR spokesman Andre Mahicic announced the return of half a million Syrian displaced people to the areas of Assad’s regime in Aleppo, Homs and Damascus, in an indirect announcement that the regime areas are "safe" and as if there were no security or legal problems therein.
The strange statement seems as a play on words to promote Assad’s regime in a professional way that reveals the high level of support that the regime enjoys from the international community organizations.
Claiming that the half a million Syrians “returned to visit their properties and relatives,” the statement avoided mentioning whether they returned contemporarily or permanently. It was also limited to the “internally” displaced and did not refer to the reasons of their displacement, i.e. the violations and massacres of the regime and its imported militias. It also ignored the environs of Damascus, Homs, and many other areas where residents were driven out forever.
The spokesperson did not also define the source of such figures, whether it is the regime or the opposition. More probably, Assad’s regime announced such figures, because the political and military opposition cannot speak in this language. In addition, documented displacements from the regime areas to the rebels’ areas are taking place on a full swing. It costs more than $1000 to leave the “safe” regime areas to the opposition’s areas for the wanted and their families, for young men refusing to serve at Assad’s army, for people escaping the miserable economic situation, and for those afraid of Assad’s regime militias.
The statement could be a prelude to other statements through which the United Nations aims at lauding the “disciplined” Assad’s regime that “works for the sake of civilians.” It is too strange that the statement coincides with the declaration of the outcomes of the investigations in the chemical massacre in Khan Skeikhun. It had greater repercussions than revealing the responsibility of the regime of using sarin gas in Idlib.