Opposition denies army has entered Wadi Barada

Pro Assad Syrian TV channel announced that the regime and the opposition reached an agreement concerning the necessity to send maintenance teams to the Barada Valley to refurbish the waterworks that feed the capital, Damascus. The governor of Rif Damascus stated that the opposition fighters and the Syrian regime agreed on having maintenance workers enter to Ain al-Fijah in the Barada Valley, which was denied by the Syrian armed opposition.

The FSA engaged in violent attacks against the Assad forces and the Hezbollah militias on a number of axes in the Barada valley. This comes in the twentieth day of the military campaign led by these parties to control the region. The Revolutionary Forces of Syria Media Office in Rif Damascus declared that the latest attack ended without any progress for the forces of the regime and the Hezbollah militia. The hostile attacks blasted the region with more than 500 rockets and mortars. The Barada Valley siege targets about 100 thousand civilians living under continuous threat and shortages of basic materials.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation declared that the finale stages of emancipating Damascus from the grasps of terrorism is approaching. Sources close to the Syrian opposition interpreted the statement as an effort to legitimize the military operation targeting the Barada Valley. The United Nations stated that 5.5 Million people in Damascus are deprived of water, because of the ongoing battles between the regime and the opposition.

Jan Egeland, chairman of the working group on humanitarian assistance to Syria in the United Nations, declared in a news conference in Geneva that it is hard to know who is responsible for the situation. Egeland conveyed: “In Damascus alone, 5.5 million people have been deprived of water or have received very little, because the Barada valley resources are unusable due to the fighting, sabotage, or both.” The UN estimated that 4 million people from the capital and its suburbs are affected by water cuts since December 22nd.