Baladi News – (Hussam Mohammed)
Various Syrian pro-regime sources revealed that a large number of Assad’s government officials is involved in illicit selling of relief food baskets provided by international organizations supporting Assad and his regime. The same sources stated that the keepers of the warehouses of relief materials are responsible for stealing another part of the baskets and delivering it to pro- regime neighborhoods.
As indicated in the comments of dozens of Syrians living in Damascus on social media networks, Assad’s regime officials sell free food baskets at prices as high as $ 100 per basket.
The supporting sources indicated that women, old people, and children spend days in queues at the doors of charities in al-Midan district in Damascus in order to obtain one food basket after registering their names, but they receive nothing. In many cases, officials responsible for the distribution forge signatures of receipts of such baskets for stealing, which deprives the poor people who really need them.
Sources at the regime’s Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor said that minister Rima al-Qadri issued a direction to stop the distribution through this mechanism and reduce the gatherings, without disclosing the real reasons behind such a direction. However, observers think that the minister wants to acquit the regime from such thefts before humanitarian organizations that supply it with large amounts of relief food baskets, most of which are sold.
It is noteworthy that the capital Damascus hosts thousand hundreds of families who fled Damascus countryside as well as areas all around the country escaping barrel bombs that the regime has been dropping to destroy the infrastructure of the rebel-held areas.
Several News reports highlighted the fact that most reliefs are distributed by the regime to its supporters in Damascus, Homs, and the coastal cities, who are not in need for them. Meanwhile, most of tents used by the Syrian regime soldiers were obtained from the UN, which constitutes evidence that the international organization is aware of the method of distributing the aid that the regime receives.