WASHINGTON – Tears welling in her eyes, Syrian refugee Amineh Sawan said Thursday that Americans are too focused on the use of chemical weapons by the regime of President Bashar Assad.
“My brother’s family survived the chemical weapon attack the day of the attack,” Amineh said, her voice trembling. “Seven days later they were killed with a mortar shell. If you take away the weapons, Assad still has so many weapons to kill us.”
READ MORE: UN Security Council tells Syria to speed up chemical weapons agent disposal
Sawan and her cousin Heba survived a chemical weapon attack in the Syrian town of Moadamiyeh. At the Capitol on Thursday the cousins said their warring country was being ravaged by the use of weapons and that distinguishing between a chemical weapon and a conventional one missed the point.
“We are human! We are dying,” Heba said.
They spoke as Syrian rebels raided the town of Aleppo amid a relentless government air campaign. At least 246 people, including 73 children, have died in the past five days alone, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
WATCH: Massive humanitarian airlift brings aid to Syrian refugees
The cousins spoke after meeting with Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, the chairman of a Senate subcommittee that works on Syrian issues. Kaine left the meeting calling for a more aggressive response from the international community. He said he is pushing for immediate guarantees from the Assad regime that humanitarian aid can enter the country and supports a U.N. Security Council resolution to monitor and report anyone blocking access to humanitarian aid.
Russia has said it would not support such a vote, which Kaine said was unacceptable.
READ MORE: The world is letting down Syria’s children
“I want to see what every nation around that table – especially Russia, with the world’s eyes on Russia now – have to say,” the Democrat said.
Kaine’s words came after what he described as a wrenching meeting with 24-year-old Heba, 23-year-old Amineh and Anas al-Dabas, 34, who survived a conventional weapons attack on his home city of Daraya, Syria.
Heba and Amineh were living in Moadamiyeh, a small town west of the Syrian capital Damascus, when civilians were attacked with chemical weapons last August. The town was then surrounded by Assad’s troops with food and other aid blocked, an attempt to starve the town’s residents. The cousins were able to escape with the help of the Red Cross during a short humanitarian pause.
WATCH: Will the June 30 deadline for destroying Syria’s chemical weapons be met?
Amineh said she feels responsible for those still suffering under Assad’s rule.
“I feel I have to reach the whole world to let them know what our situation really is, what it is really about,” she said.
Kaine said Heba, Amineh and al-Dabas told him they didn’t understand the U.S.’s inaction or the distinction between a chemical attack and other brutal forms of war.
“It is hard to explain to them why more members of Congress won’t vote to act,” Kaine, who supported military intervention in Syria with a committee vote last year. “They have a hard time understanding that. They had a hard time understanding why is death by a chemical weapon worse than death by starvation? Or death by being shot and having your corpse set on fire.”
Comments