Thread by @SyrianACD

“How can someone live without bread?” were the words of displaced Syrians in #Rukban camp, where all bakeries were recently shut down due to shortage in flour, leaving at least seven thousand people besieged in the camp and denied any humanitarian assistance. 1/ 🧵

In a remote area of abandoned desert, 1800 families are still suffering from international community’s negligence and apathy. At least seven thousand people, most of them women and children, were left to starve in #Rukban despite calls for help that span years of suffering. 2/

At the time when aid is flowing swiftly to support #Ukrainians forcibly displaced by #Russia, who supports Syrian regime & denies aid delivery to Rukban camp, people are left to choose between starving to death and dying for lack of medical care.. 3/ syacd.org/choice-facing-…

Or surrendering themselves to the Syrian regime, without any security guarantees, risking being arbitrarily detained, tortured to death, and forcibly disappeared. 4/ syacd.org/displaced-syri…

Earlier, the UN & SARC played on the dire situation to convince these desperate Syrians to return to areas under regime control by sending empty trucks to #Rukban camp to pick up those who decided to return, rather than sending live-saving aid. 5/ syacd.org/un-and-sarc-mu…

This despite the fact that the local council in #Rukban issued a statement declaring that they do not want to be taken to the regime-held areas, and asked to be evacuated to the north of #Syria which is not under control of the Syrian regime. 6/ facebook.com/11116228077961…

Amnesty International’s @MarieForestier, warned of the imminent danger, “We urge the United Nations and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent not to go ahead with returns, which will undoubtedly endanger the women, men and children living in Rukban.” 7/ amnesty.org/en/latest/news…

In light of all of the above, the Syrian Association for Citizens’ Dignity demands the following: 8/

• Urgent action by the United Nations, European Union and the United States, to end the unbearable suffering of some seven thousand displaced Syrians in #Rukban camp who are lacking basic food, medicine and medical care due to the actions of #Assad regime & its #Russian ally; 9/

• Swift action by UN & relevant int'l bodies to prevent forced return of the displaced to Assad-held areas, where they face detention, disappearances & forced recruitment, which is engineered through so-called humanitarian corridors under false Russian guarantees; 10/

• We call on UN to respect demands of the displaced not to be returned to Assad-held areas – where they'll not be safe from persecution and humiliation – which they have clearly communicated to the United Nations in our previous survey with some 3,000 residents of the camp; 11/

• The direct intervention of UN and int'l community to secure safe passage and repatriate displaced people from #Rukban camp to areas of their choice; 12/

• Any participation by UN or any int'l actor in implementing Assad regime plans regarding Rukban camp situation (under Russian “guarantees”) is equivalent of directly taking part in killing & imprisoning Syrian civilians and send them into forced recruitment. 13/

There's certainly no safe environment in Assad-held areas that guarantees safe & dignified return of displaced Syrians. The horrors currently witnessed in #Ukraine are but a reminder of the horrors of displacement Syrians went through for years, by same perpetrator: #Russia. 14/

The same scenario is repeated in #Ukraine, where #Russia is blocking aid to the besieged #Mariupol and preventing a humanitarian corridor. It seems there is a lot in common between #Syria|ns and Ukrainians when it comes to their suffering and the source of it. 15/

But, as #Rukban situation clearly testifies, there is one key difference: the world’s response, in which the #Syrian people trapped in Rukban are not afforded the same empathy and compassion.

It is high time for this to change. 16/16