Baladi News – (Yasser al-Atrash)
International news agencies, as well as deep-rooted Arabic newspapers that are described as being biased towards the Syrian Revolution, quoted reports that dozens of families left the blockaded neighborhoods of Aleppo towards the regime-controlled areas in the city.
Interestingly, these newspapers took such reports “impartially” from one party, without referring to the viewpoint of the Syrian opposition, or even assigning the task of fact-finding or obtaining information from the ground to their correspondents or to unbiased journalists.
Al-Hayat, the newspaper published in two editions from Saudi Arabia and London, quoted a report of Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) indicating that on Saturday, dozens of families left the eastern rebel-held neighborhoods of Aleppo through passages between the two parts of the city, which were opened by the Syrian regime for those who would like to leave.
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) confirmed that a number of civilians fled the eastern neighborhoods through a passage in Salaheddin neighborhood.
On the other hand, SANA indicated that “the army soldiers received and transported families in buses towards temporary accommodation centers in cooperation with competent authorities.”
The agency also mentioned that “a number of women over 40 years old left the eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo and arrived in Salaheddin neighborhood,” which includes the confrontation line between the two fighting opponents.
AL-Hayat also quoted a report of SANA stating that “Armed men exited and surrendered their weapons”, citing footages from Al Ikhbaria Syrian News channel to support this news.
Baladi News checked the validity of such news through the network of its correspondents in the liberated neighborhoods of the besieged city.
Ziad al-Halabi, Baladi News reporter in Aleppo, confirmed that few people tried to cross towards the regime-controlled neighborhoods, but they were targeted by the regime snipers. He also indicated that no crossing of what can be called families or groups of people took place.
Meanwhie, Bassem al-Halabi, Head of Coordination and Follow-up office Between the Rebel Factions in Aleppo, told Baladi News what actually happened. “After besieging Aleppo city and cutting off its last exit, Assad’s militias started circulating, through the regime media, that they opened safe passages for civilians. Also, helicopters threw leaflets over the besieged neighborhoods, showing maps of passages and instructions as to how to advance towards them”, said Bassem.
He added, “Several civilians in the besieged neighborhoods received the leaflets. The next day, a civilian headed towards Bustan al-Qasr crossing, thinking that Assad’s militia had been honest about opening passages. While he was walking towards the crossing, the sniper of the municipal building shot a bullet at him. Then, two shells were fired at the area by Assad’s artillery, although Assad’s media indicated that dozens of civilians were received by the Syrian Army.”
As for civilians shown on the Syrian official TV, the speaker said “all the civilians who were filmed are residents of the regime-held areas. These people were brought as a media material to demonstrate that such fake (death) passages had been opened. Yesterday, another civilian tried to cross through the declared Salaheddin crossing, but the regime targeted him too. Today, the regime media talks about receiving families through this passage, but the truth is that no passages have been opened at all by Assad’s militias.”
“We made several recordings refuting what was reported by the regime media and quoted by other agencies. We also disapprove the photos and clips shown by the regime of proclaimed armed men surrendering to the Syrian army”, al-Halabi said.
“Why were the faces and names of such fighters not shown, although they returned to (the safe haven of the homeland)?” the speaker wondered, confirming that this was another propaganda by the Syrian regime media, which have been known to be the largest source of disinformation all around the world.