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Saturday, September 21, 2013

Maaloula (Malula) situation as at September 21, 2013 .... still not disinfected entirely


450 families have been displaced from Maaloula.  That would mean close to 2000+ people.  The vid is from 2 days ago.

From RT:
Tales from village-turned-battlefield  : Maaloula siege survivors talk.  Maaloula residents, forced to flee their homes when the Christian village was taken over by jihadists, have found refuge in Damascus. Many live in fear having not overcome the shock of what had happened. RT managed to speak to some.

Antoinette Taaleb, a Maaloula resident, had three members of her family killed by jihadists on the first day of the village siege. With her pain still fresh, she’s one of the few village refugees in Damascus to agree to speak about it to RT’s reporter in Syria, Maria Finoshina. 

“We were woken up in the morning by their ‘Allahu Akbar’ shouts,” Antoinette recalls. “We closed the doors, and we gathered all in one room. They broke into the garden and told us: ‘Surrender and we won’t harm you.’ Antoine, Mikhael, and Shadi went there and surrendered. I heard my cousin outside saying that he never held weapons. I understood they pointed their guns at them. Then they started shooting and throwing mortar bombs into the room. I got injured in my chest and elbow.” 



Many of those who escaped violence in Maaloula are reluctant to talk to journalists, fearing this could somehow do harm to their relatives who remain missing. 

Antoinette’s father in law Suleyman Milaneh is 88 years old. He can’t say he’s seen it all before, as according to him, nothing like this has happened in his life time. 

“We are living in peace, and it seems now they want to displace us Christians from the country. We pray God we’ll conquer them and kick them out.” 

Another of Antoinette’s relatives, an artist who’s hiding her face and asks to go by the name of Lady Oscar, says it’s hard to say how many people were killed in Maaloula because jihadists holding the village often keep bodies for further ransom and to instill fear.    

From DailyStarLebanon:
.....BEIRUT: A visiting delegation from the predominantly    Syrian Christian town of Maaloula thanked MP Michel Aoun Saturday and voiced concern about the fate of their fellow town folk

Saadeh said Maaloula had become a ghost town, apart for "some armed men who remained to fight against the extremist [Syrian] rebels."

“The Islamist group has taken control of the Maaloula hills where St. Sarkis Monastery is located,” he added......

.......“Many people did not believe that there are martyrs from Maaloula or the fact that the Nusra Front entered the town, destroyed some churches, monasteries and houses and tried to convert the residents [to Islam],” Suhail said, adding that six of the town’s population had been killed.

He also said that 450 Christian families had fled the town to nearby Syrian villages and across the border into Lebanon as a result of the attacks......

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