Charity says milk destroyed by rebels was not expired, provides documents

 
Translation by Yusra Ahmed

(Zaman Al Wasl)- The case of the expired formula milk destroyed by customs at Bab al-Hawa border crossing, has become a high profile public matter after it was openly discussed following the clarification and justification made by the border crossing which is controlled by Ahrar al-Sham, for destroying the shipment of formula milk, and the reply of “Barada Association for humanitarian Aid”, which contradicts the action of Bab Al-Hawa border crossing.

In a previous report, Zaman Al Wasl presented the point of view of one side, Bab al-Hawa border crossing, and justification for destroying the shipment of formula milk detailed by Juma al-Omar, Dean of Faculty of Pharmacology in Idlib University and Head of Quarantine and Food Safety section in Bab al-Hawa border crossing.

To know the point of view of the other side, Barada Association, because it was the body that bought the milk from the German company of Humana.
When the newspaper tried to contact the Association via its official facebook page to clarify more points, the answer came that its opinion was published on its facebook page. In the same time, the page administrator requested contacting the manager of the Barada Association, Dr. Marwan Khouri for further inquiries.

In the beginning all the newspaper received was a reply to the official email, in which he introduced himself as the manager of Barada Association, then he explained that last year they delivered 100 thousands milk cans to Syria, but this act by Bab al-Hawa border crossing which destroyed two containers of 35 thousand cans was shocking and devastating.

Dr. Khouri detailed that a misunderstanding happened when the customs saw labels written in Persian detailing the validity was till December,2015-January 2016, under the label written in Arabic which indicated the expiry on July 2016. However after the initial validity was exceeded, the re-labelling was carried out by “Humana company” itself for extending the period to the expiry date which is 6 months longer, reaching to July 2016. That procedure is not unusual because the first t date is “best before” and not the expiration, and it corresponds to German and European food law. The extension of the expiration date and its safety for consumption was also confirmed by the Veterinary and food inspection, which is responsible for the inspection of food for exportation.

Khouri mentioned that Bab al-Hawa customs have destroyed the milk despite providing them with receipts of donations and all required official documents, without returning to us for more details, which is a clear violation of the applicable legal practice at the expense of the Syrian children.

Khouri confirmed that Barada Association for Humanitarian Aid is part of the Association for German Syrian Societies, and all it activities are supervised by Syrian and German highly qualified experts.

In an attempt from Zaman Al Wasl to dig deeper and know more details and answer questions Syrian people want answers about, it tried to contact the manager directly, but he refused talking and the newspaper was asked to put any query in writing. Therefore, 6 questions were sent, the first was if the association has provide the customs with the certificates of validity and expiration beforehand, especially the letter confirming that date on May 5, while the shipment entered the borer crossing before that date.

The second query was about informing the customs at Bab al-Hawa about the new labels before shipping. While the third question was about the association's awareness of the Persian labels on the cans.

In fourth query, the newspaper wanted to know which safer, concentrating on quality or quantity, and if it is better to buy good quality materials at higher prices, or buying near-expiration stuff with lower cost.

The fifth query wanted to know why the association considered destroying the expired shipments as a revenge act, not as a professional technical act.
The last question was about the reality of claims of Dr, Juma al-Omar who said that Dr. Marwan has informed him that he only knew about changing the date of expiration and the new label after ceasing the shipment at Bab al-Hawa border crossing
The information office of Barada Association for Humanitarian Aid responded to all questions at once without detailing saying: “After refusing letting the milk in, we requested a document from the Humana company to confirm expiration date after it was legally expended and we sent it to them, but they were not convinced claiming that it was not legal and not from the German Health Authority, despite the document has the validity test that done by the German Health Authority, then we asked them (customs) to wait till we examine the formula milk in governmental Turkish laboratory, but they were not concerned and refused that suggestion, and they did not wait to bring any other proof, and destroyed the shipments only 3 days after arriving.

In regard to the Persian writing, the company confirmed to us that milk was intended for exportation to the Iranian market, but it was excess, and for that the labels were changed, but they dod not believe us and accused us of accepting milk rejected by the Iranian government.

If we want to buy milk with long expiration period, we will be able to buy only small amount apart from the high cost of shipping from Germany, and it was not the first time to deliver near-expiration products and many organisation do that because they cover big number of children. The expiration was done under supervision of the German Authority and there is no doubt about the German credibility and quality.

It seems that officials at Bab al-Hawa border Crossing do not know about such procedures, which is justified, but they should have checked more for validity and expiration especially we provided them with the needed information.

they destroyed the formula milk shipment relying on their committee only, which is not acceptable, as validity need specialised neutral laboratories to confirm.
In regard to the last question (claims of Dr. al-Omar), the information center said that they cannot comment about the matter, and Dr. khouri only can answer, even if that was correct, it is not an excuse as documents confirm the validity of milk.

The matter is still escalating, but in the end providing good quality products is much safer than providing expired or near expired product, even if that covers bigger number of children.