Archived: Qais Fares: Tuna Fish, Milk and the Fortuneteller

Qais Fares, a Syrian journalist March 21, 2016 Do not eat fish with milk because it may harm your health. We, Syrians, had often heard this advice that has not been scientifically proven. However, the Syrian regime – in a pre-emptive step – prevents such materials from reaching the Syrian people in many neighborhoods, villages and cities across Syria. And for purely scientific purposes it has been besiege them, so the Syrian besieged people would think their government is committing a war crime against them by using starvation as a weapon of war. I could not write less sarcastic words to talk about an ongoing scandal that took place recently in Madaya, 40 km northwest of Damascus. To make a long story short, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) delivered 7,800 food baskets to Madaya on March 17. Each basket should have five tuna cans as listed on each basket. However, locals in charge of the baskets distribution in Madaya claimed that more than 3,000 baskets did only contain one tuna can. Making a total of around 19,000 missing tuna cans. When I tweeted the news in English, an ICRC official contacted me asking about the source of my information and I said it was an insider source besides to social media. Immediately after that, ICRC sent a delegation to Madaya. When the delegation returned the same day, the ICRC official contacted me confirming that the news is true but the number of missing cans is not accurate. He added that they will compensate people of Madaya, and they are investigating whether the loss was a result of negligence of their employees or a theft. According to a doctor from the filed clinic in Madaya, there were around 2,050 people who suffer from kwashiorkor, a protein deficiency in the town. That is way the ICRC was concentrating on delivering tuna fish cans according to the ICRC official. Madaya has been besieged by Bashar al-Assad’s army and the terrorist Lebanese militia of Hezbollah since July 2015. In December 2015, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) reported that 23 people had died of starvation after a total blockade prevented any food or humanitarian aid to enter since 18 October 2015. The Syrian regime calls MSF a “branch of the French intelligence operating in Syria.” Last January, the UN called for unimpeded access to deliver emergency assistance to Madaya, Al-Fu’ah and Kafriya, two Shiite towns in Idlib, north of Syria. The tuna fish cans scandal reminds me of the so-called ‘Milk Petition’ of April 2011. Around 400 Syrian actors, writers and TV personalities signed the petition at the end of April 2011. They called on the government to lift the military siege imposed on the southwestern city Daraa and to provide its inhabitants, especially children, with urgently needed food and medicine. A few days later, some of those actors were forced to appear on state television to apologize for their position. It is unfortunate that in the 21st century a human being is forced to fight in order to preserve a minimum breathe. Especially since that human being lives on a fertile soil such as in Madaya and Zabadani. Indeed it is disgusting that a ‘government’ that claims ‘legitimacy’ is using collective punishment against its own starving citizens and is taking pretexts in order to prevent the delivery of the minimum means of life to them. It is ironic at the same time to hear US Secretary of State John Kerry addressing the Assad’s regime a few weeks ago by saying: “Our hope is that they will also stop their people, their troops and their officials who get in the way or manage these shipments, from actually putting their hands into the shipments and taking out medicine or taking out other preferred items simply to keep for themselves.” Mr. Kerry has the insight of a fortuneteller. And I see him in the future addressing Bashar al-Assad and saying: “Do not eat fish with milk because it may harm your health!” https://www.facebook.com/notes/qais-fares/tuna-fish-milk-and-the-fortuneteller/1092045790833927?__mref=message