Good morning. Thank you for this invitation. We are addressing Canada's role in stopping this massacre in Syria. I will talk personally about my family in eastern Ghouta. Just yesterday, my uncle sent me a photo of dried bread from there, to eat with his family.
We urge Canada to push Resolution 2401 of the Security Council to stop this bombing and shelling in Syria.
If the situation continues like this, we will see the same scenario we saw in Aleppo in both Ghouta and Idlib. Also, Jaafari from the Assad regime said in the last session of the Security Council that they would continue the scenario of Aleppo in Idlib and in Ghouta.
We urge Canada and its allies to put pressure at the international level to stop this massacre. In the 72 hours following the adoption of Resolution 2401, there were 107 people killed by bombing, including 34 children. There was also a chlorine attack in eastern Ghouta last week.
We see that when Russia decides to do a ceasefire, they do it. From 9 a.m. until 2 p.m., there is a daily ceasefire. We need to press for the implementation of the ceasefire or truce in eastern Ghouta, and an evacuation.
We don't need human train corridors for a humanitarian evacuation from Ghouta because there is no safe way to exit from Ghouta to Damascus. There is a recruitment with the army for men, and we would not have any idea about the situation of civilians if they are evacuated from Ghouta, as was happening in Aleppo. If there is no plan for evacuation, we'll put the civilians in a situation where we won't know where they will arrive. We are talking about the children and the women.
The media talks about the basements in Syria, in Ghouta especially. There are no shelters in Ghouta, just the basements of the residential buildings. There is no equipment for staying there. Two weeks have already passed in this situation. If the situation continues like this, we will lose all the civilians there.
It is estimated that eastern Ghouta has the same number of civilians as the city of Manchester. It's a big number. If we stay silent in the face of this massacre, we will see one of the biggest crises in the world.
Thank you.