The heartrending images of skeleton-thin children starving to death in the besieged town of Madaya on Thursday sent another chilling reminder to the world of the unspeakable horrors Syrians have gone through in the last five years.
In December 2015, barely two days after the United Nations passed a resolution demanding immediate cessation of attacks against Syrian civilians, Russian airstrikes in the northern city of Idlib killed dozens of citizens, reducing the spirit of the unanimous will of the international community to eerie hollowness.
These are just two examples from the unending chapter of orgy that has seen death and destruction in the heart of the Middle East, with ripples spreading all around, and across continents.
Since Bashar-al Assad’s regime reacted violently to mass protests in the 2011 Arab Spring uprising for change, conservative estimates say more than 250,000 people including tens of thousands of children have lost their lives, millions have been uprooted, leaving the survivors with nightmarish psychological scars. The regime continues to use besieges of towns as a tool of repression, as international aid convoys are unable to deliver basic life-saving food and drugs.
The multilayered conflict, involving the Assad regime, moderate Syrian rebels, ISIS, Hezbollah and other militant outfits as well as foreign backers of the proxies, has reduced Syrian cities to rubble
Now the latest Saudi-Iranian standoff threatens to prolong the Syrian suffering since their rivalry would stalemate any progress on a much-anticipated UN peace process. Time and the future generations will judge both Riyadh and Tehran harshly for their reckless behaviors and sectarian-driven roles in the countless killings in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. But, do they care about Arab, regional or international concerns?
The perpetuation of the Syrian conflict could be partly explained by looking at the international response to the imbroglio since 2011. It was after years of confusion that the UN Security Council in December 2015 gathered finance ministers of member countries to pledge through a resolution an effort to strangulate financial lifelines of the Al-Raqqah-headquartered ISIS or Daesh terror outfit.
A political way out of the Syrian abyss is nowhere in sight. Meanwhile, exploiting the inexplicable international response to the Syrian tragedy, Moscow has launched its own military campaign against any and all forces that might threaten Assad, considered a key to Russian and Iranian influence in the country.
Besides causing a staggering refugee crisis, the Syrian civil war has directly or indirectly resulted in Paris attacks. In the United States, authorities are investigating if a shooting rampage in San Bernardino, California, had any foreign links. Iraq has been in a permanent state of chaos, Iranian-Saudi rivalry has worsened with the consequence that Yemen is buckling under Saudi attacks. Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey are overflowing with refugees. The ISIS is even trying to get a foothold in Afghanistan, a country where the United States still maintains a sizable presence of troops to help Kabul contain the Taliban insurgency.
Analysts believe that the international community may have to face consequences of the ISIS terror and implications of an un-encountered militant narrative as well as from the regional turmoil in the form of spillover, as happened in Paris. Thousands of Westerners have joined the ISIS which is rooted partly in the terrible Iraq war, Assad’s murders of Syrian civilians, Baghdad’s inability to unify the Iraqi nation and Saudi-Iranian competition for strategic power.
Concurrently, emergence of far right in some Western countries is fueling rhetoric against Muslim populations. Some countries like Germany and Canada have embraced refugees graciously while others have hardened their stance rooted in politics of alarmism, and therefore setting back the initial goodwill shown toward refugees in Europe after an image of a dead toddler lying face down on a Turkish beach touched common humanity of people around the world.
The refugee Syrian and Iraqi families, who still have not found welcoming hosts, are struggling every hour and minute for their survival.
Inside Syria, the human catastrophe takes an unprecedented physical and mental toll. Assad and the ISIS, perpetrators of state and militant terrors respectively, go about their killing ways. Nearly 13.5 million Syrians need relief assistance in the war-ravaged areas. The country, to borrow poet Mathew Arnold’s expression, appears to exist on some “darkling plain” that has been “swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight”.
It was this horrible humanitarian condition that made a top UN humanitarian relief official scream that the Syrian situation is “unacceptable”.
UN Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, Stephen O’Brien, poignantly called it a failure of the world and a blot on its collective conscience.
“I came to Syria to find ways to improve the ongoing response efforts and to ensure that those in need across the country will receive the assistance they so desperately require,” he said during a visit to the terror-struck country. “This situation is unacceptable; a blot on our collective conscience,” O’Brien, who is also the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, added.
The official also visited a former school, now being used as a shelter by 45 displaced families. The school had been had been hit by mortars many times, severely injuring some children during the attacks.
“The situation remains fragile and even during my visit a car bomb exploded near the al-Zahra area in Homs City, a devastating attack that was claimed by [the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL], killing and injuring many innocent people,” said O’Brien, who also spoke of the harrowing aerial attacks that reportedly hit a school in Douma, Eastern Ghouta.
Meanwhile, the world has still to step up to deal with the humanitarian calamity of the Syrian conflict. According to the United Nations, the Humanitarian Response Plan for 2016, which requires $3.2 billion for 13.5 million Syrian men and women, including nearly 6.5 million who are internally displaced, about 72 per cent of the population, that is without access to drinking water and an estimated two million children who are out of school.
On December 20, 2015, Human Rights Watch reported that the military offensive that the Russian and Syrian government forces opened against armed groups opposed to the government on September 30, 2015, has included “extensive” use of cluster munitions, inherently indiscriminate and internationally banned weapons.
Ole Solvang, Deputy Emergencies Director, said. “The UN Security Council should get serious about its commitment to protect Syria’s civilians by publicly demanding that all sides stop the use of cluster munitions.”
According to the Watch, it documented the use of cluster munitions on at least 20 occasions since Syria and Russia began their joint offensive on September 30.
Meanwhile, a December 22, 2015, UN resolution asked all warring parties to allow passage of humanitarian conveys by opening the supply lines across war fronts. It cited a decline in convoy approvals by the Syrian authorities, noting that as of 31 October, only 27 out of 91 UN inter-agency requests in 2015 had been approved in principle, and that between 2013 and 2015, the percentage of convoys approved in principle declined from 65 per cent to 29 per cent.
The latest UN revelations speak of urgent humanitarian needs for over 13.5 million people inside the country, 6.5 million of them internally displaced, 4.5 million living in hard-to-reach areas, including Palestinian refugees, and 393,700 trapped in besieged areas.
It is a tribute to the tenacity of the humanitarian community that it continues to reach millions of people in Syria in the face of life-threatening odds. But, as reported by the UN, there is a desperate need for additional funds in order to continue humanitarian work.
The regional sectarian scenario has further complicated peace prospects right at the start of the year 2016.
President Barack Obama, who has in recent weeks put Secretary of State John Kerry into a hi-octane diplomatic drive to secure a political path forward, faces a race against time in the last year of his presidency. Although, major players have agreed on a UN-led initiative, the Arab countries and Turkey — that want Assad off the scene — and Iran — which wants Assad to remain in power — have been at odds, and Russian President Vladimir Putin has always been opaque in his international policies.
Apart from seeking a political solution to the conflict and immediately curtailing civilian losses, the international community faces another test, when countries meet at the London Syria Conference on 4 February, 2016, to raise finances that may sustain humanitarian services.
