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THE SYRIAN CONFLICT enters its fifth year tomorrow, with death and destruction so staggering it’s almost hard to comprehend that we can talk about anything else.
Over the past few months, news headlines and bulletins have mentioned the war – but the focus has been on ISIS and its reign of terror in the area.
The faces we are seeing are those of the Jihadi Johns and other executioners who wreak havoc for terror’s sake.
We have stopped looking at the faces of the refugees – the men, women and children who have lost their homes, their lives, their education and their prospects.
The UN’s chief Ban Ki-moon said this week that the world has abandoned Syria.
The suffering continues “under the eyes of the international community, still divided and incapable of taking collective action to stop the killing and destruction,” he said.
Since 15 March 2011, 210,000 people have been killed in the war. More than 4 million people have fled the country, with another 7.6 million displaced within its borders.
At last estimate, 10,664 children have lost their innocent lives.
Another 2 million have lost their homes. Some have never known anything other than a refugee camp or a war site. Very few go to school anymore.
“For the youngest children, this crisis is all they have ever known. For adolescents entering their formative years, violence and suffering have not only scarred their past; they are shaping their futures,” said UNICEF chief Anthony Lake.
Each day brings with it fresh horrors – unemployment; a dire lack of food, water, clothing and medication; struggles with depression and loss; executions; arbitrary arrests; abduction and torture.
It is hard to keep caring
While individual donations are welcome, the UN has said it needs governments to step forward and produce results – in monetary terms and to welcome refugees.
However, a ‘donor fatigue’ has set in, they say.
Ban is due to chair a donors conference in Kuwait on March 31 to help raise millions of dollars needed to address Syria’s deepening humanitarian crisis.
Jan Egeland, a former UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs who now heads the Norwegian Refugee Council, told AFP that the crisis was a “betrayal of our ideals, because we’re not supposed to be watching people suffer and die in 2015.”
Jody Clarke of the UNHCR believes there is still a lack of recognition among countries of how bad the situation actually is.
“About two-thirds of urban refugees are living below the poverty line,” he told TheJournal.ie. “People are existing on less than $40 per head and savings are dwindling so there are fewer coping mechanisms.”
For Ireland’s part, we have resettled or are due to resettle some 230 refugees. There have only been 89 asylum applications during the period, compared with some 6,000 applications in the UK.
“Every country needs to do more,” says Clarke. “Syria is now the largest refugee producing company worldwide. What’s happening now, given the pressures on resources and infrastructure in Turkey and Lebanon, is people are now beginning to undertake dangerous journeys over sea. That is leading to an increase in drownings.”
He also believes there is a certain apathy that comes with a drawn out conflict or famine.
“We just need to stress that the need for help now is greater than ever. Ultimately, there needs to be an end to the fighting but that is not yet in sight.”
The pleas
The UN is not the only group urging action.
Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders issued a strongly-worded plea this week, asking why it is not running some of its largest medical programmes ever in Syria.
MSF was forced to reduce its activities inside Syria following the gradual deterioration of security situation and the abduction of five staff members by Islamic State in January 2014.
“Not only did this serious incident precipitate the closure of health facilities in Islamic State controlled areas, it also meant that most of MSF’s international medical staff could no longer work in Syria, as we could no longer trust that our teams would not be harmed,” said president Dr Joanne Liu.
It is unacceptable that humanitarian assistance is so limited when the death toll and the suffering of civilians has reached unbearable levels.
From the estimated 2,500 doctors who worked in Aleppo, Syria’s second biggest city, fewer than 100 now remain. The rest have fled, been displaced, kidnapped or killed – leaving a catastrophic gap in care and expertise.
Put simply by Liu, “We can and should do better for the people of Syria,” said Liu.
“My father taught me to be Khadrejeh (a greengrocer). I used to travel all over the Syrian countryside to buy vegetables and fruit. I would bring them to my shop in the city and sell them. I can never forget those days. The Grand Aleppo Bazaar was a frequent destination. My children were growing up with me. And then, the protests for freedom from the big cities began to reach my city. With growing tensions with the army, it became difficult to bring bread and vegetables into the city. It was then that I started to smuggle vegetables into the city.
“My vegetable truck was stolen, along with all my money. My children and I became jobless. We would clap our hands on the mouths of our children when they cried, so no one would hear them. My son and nephew were both killed in a battle in the city. That is a moment that I will never forget. It is with me, always.
“I draw happiness and strength from travelling and selling fruits and vegetables. I always pray for my father; he influenced my life and taught me so much about trade and life. I begin my days by opening my shop and finding out about the latest events in the war. And I remember the words of my son, to pray for his victory.”
Mohammad’s fruit and vegetable (khadrjeh) shop participates in GOAL Syria’s voucher programme. GOAL distributes vouchers amongst the most vulnerable that can be redeemed at local shops for food. Mohammed said: “If it wasn’t for GOAL, I wouldn’t have sold a single Syrian pound (worth of fruit/vegetables)”.
“The stability and security that we lived in before the war was priceless. I was poor, but I was happy with my life. I was happiest when I was offered a job with the border services. Now, I fear the war. I fear for my children amid the airstrikes. There was a thunderstorm last night and there was lightening. My children thought it was an airstrike.
“One day in 2013, my daughter Hanan was sick, and I took her to the pharmacy to buy medicine. When we were driving back, an army vehicle blocked me and they dragged me off of my motorcycle.
They threw my daughter on the sidewalk; she was only three years old then. They started beating me up and kicking my head in front of people. I remember that my daughter was looking at me and crying uncontrollably.
“They insulted me and accused me of supporting terrorists, and threatened to shoot me dead. I kept begging them to let me go, and they finally left me injured and bleeding on a public street. After that incident, I fled with my family, my disabled father and my children, to hide in a nearby mountain. We later moved into an empty school there. One day, everything shook because of a heavy bombing; and I found out that our house was destroyed. Within a moment, we lost everything, everything we owned.
“When my family returned to the city, I made my private car into a taxi. A displaced family asked me to drive them to the Turkish border, so I drove through a checkpoint and nothing happened. But when I was driving back they started to shoot at me. Bullets caught my leg and arm. Then men dragged me out of my car and put me in its trunk. I felt my leg growing numb. They drove me to the border hospital and stole my car.
“My leg had been infected and the doctors decided to amputate it. If I had refused, the infection would have spread all over my body. Now I have a prosthetic leg and I received some physical therapy at the border hospital.
“It’s very difficult, because my daughter still asks me, ‘Baba, why did they cut your leg?’ She asks, ‘Why did they drag you off of the motorcycle and step on your head?’ Those moments never leave her thoughts.
“I have three children; Hanan is five, Dima is four, and Anas is two and a half. My wife is pregnant. It is now her ninth month.”
Anas is one of GOAL’s beneficiaries. He used to receive food baskets from GOAL, and he now receives food vouchers that allow him to buy fresh and dry food at the market.
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’15,000 people were known to police in France as having been radicalised’
Islam….the religion of peace…………………………not!
Exactly my point. I’m french. Let me tell you that the police in France are verrrryy incompetent
@oliver I believe they are not so incompetent when it’s about harassing refugees…
@al ca The number of Muslims in France is estimated to exceed 4 million. But it’s ok to just ignore a fact that make your comment sound just irrelevant.
Ok so not incompetent? Explain to me what happend in the case of Jacqueline sauvage? If she went to show them her bruises they would have laughed at her. Tu est francais? Ce problem avec les Arab cest merci Sarkozy!
@oliverjunelle
The problem with the ‘Arabs’ in France is a problem for a very long time now and has more to do with your colonial history and a failed immigration and integration policy going back decades!
Sarkozy was still a little school boy when the problem started!
In all fairness the French treat the Muslims in their Country as second class citizens. They do not help themselves.
Are you really blaming the innocent French citizens for the savagery by Islamic terrorists!! Unbelievable
Rebecca, in fairness the French treat all foreigner’s in their country, as second class citizens.
No wrong. They isolate themselves into there own communities and seldom go beyond that. Just like parts of England like bradford
Yes I’m aware of that. I was talking about the social tension! That’s the fault of Sarkozy
@ Oliver it’s a social issue. .. Foreigners, with low incomes, were parked in the same areas by local administration. It’s well known. Also it started long time before that thing called Sarkozy showed up.
Yes I agree. But are those area’s walled off from society? No. They chose to isolate themselves of there own free will
You don’t see a contradiction there… people were kept away from city centres and miles away from where the jobs were. Besides there were no transport for years until people protested.
I spend a lot of time in France. You ask a French person what they think of Muslims and they call them every name under the sun.
I know plenty of French Algerians as I have Algerian connections and they integrate and behave like French but get treated like sh**. Give out all you want but I have first hand experience of this.
Cholly. This has been going on since the 19th century. Look up the French Algerian war. Educate yourself and then argue with me.
So you are blaming the French citizens? Are you a Muslim Rebecca?are you sympathising with the terrorists?
The problem with Islam in France is two things…one is that the French have bent over backwards in accommodating Islam without any demands..failure in integration is not talked about due to the thin line between racism and the truth, the ‘us and them’. The other is that many Muslims don’t speak out against so called extremists because they see themselves as the victims. They’re Muslim before their French.
@prouesse/prossie….more mumbo jumbo nonsense from you….if you’re going to draw attention to yourself with your apologist rubbish, at least form coherent sentences…lol
Oliverjumelle, would you say that the ordinary French citizen is unaware of France’s colonial history? I was surprised to discover that a large percentage of English citizens knew nothing of their own army’s history of operations around the world, and especially in Ireland. Is it a colonial thing, drawn from fear, similar to the WW2 German citizens isolating themselves from their army’s attrocities? I’m just wondering what the reasons are for citizens isolating themselves.
@mistart Not my fault if you can’t read… I won’t apologize for that either.
These are the people and the ideology LÊ James Joyce are ferrying into Europe by the boatload.
How do you know?
No they’re not its all home grown , very little of the terrorist or the one who plotted terrorist attack came with the refugees, not making apologies for their actions but it’s a fact . France isolated Muslim population from ww2 onwards in suburbs you wouldn’t house your dog in . They have no feelings of belonging into neither France nor the country where there grand parents came from and therefore are very easily indoctrinated.
So France deserves whatever it gets…?
What the current wave of migrants and the French and European jihadists have in common to some extent is their religion (those arriving now from Libya are a far more mixed group). And a fundamentalist version of Islam is the ideology that supports violent jihad against unbelievers. Some of the migrants will already be extremists since there are active jihadist groups in most if not all parts of the muslim world. A proportion of the others will adopt that ideology over time – it’s statistically inevitable. So yes, migration is connected to home-grown terrorism.
No one deserves to have innocent civilians butchered not even Iraq Syria or Libya… My point was it is not refugees perpetrating those atrocities its homegrown been in France Belgium or Germany and I was just explaining why it’s so east to recruit jihadists in those countries
That explanation holds no water whatsoever. There are millions if not billions of people around the world who experience discrimination, prejudice, racism, persecution etc. The overwhelming majority produce nothing comparable to violent jihadist movements. And violent jihadist movement exist in places where muslims are the majority population and are in no way oppressed (try Bangladesh for starters). It is a global phenomenon which has existed for 1400 years in a multitude of conditions and cultures. The single connecting thread is fundamentalist Islam.
If you understand that ideology you will understand why one of its expressions is a sense of victimhood and persecution where no such conditions objectively exist and even where your group is in fact the persecuting group. It’s a victimhood internal to the belief system and independent of objective conditions. Thwarted supremacism looks and sounds exactly like genuine victimhood.
‘victimhood’ three times in the last paragraph: you need a thesaurus
William bayle- at the end of the day france was still helping these people by housing them and so on,why didnt they educate themselves or their children and move on if they dont like it so much,make something of themselves for their younger generations, useless pieces of shit. Too used to taking for free,they have a totally different look at human life rared to be like that. I dread to see europe in 20 years
Sean…i have to agree with you there.
@sean France was helping those people by housing them ? What ? France went recruiting in its colonies to get cheap labour to rebuild the country after ww2. They housed them as cheap as possible in 30 storey high towers away from everything, those buildings were not even maintained properly. Would have been very hard to integrate. You say they should have educate themselves, fine true what medium ? Very little service was provided to them to help integration not even buses to go to the nearest town . I agree with you on one point I would hate to see France and Europe in 10 years never mind 20
Yes i do believe that william. They where given the option of going to france to seek refuge from their worthorne country’s they wer not forced to slavery yes it did help france in rebuilding itself economicly. Ok maybe housing and loacating them had a different standard compared to todays world but i can garuntee u that there where french citizens familys in thoses area’s too who have evolved much differently. Same goes for syria today, europe taking in the refugee’s is good from an economical view, it will boost the economy in the long run it wil provide cheaper labour to area’s that need it eventually when they start working… Look at Our children these days all want to go to college be educated and get brilliant jobs for themselves and so on compared to 100 years ago. who picks up the small jobs that are left vacant? Refugees mostly! It happens everywhere where the economy and the standard of life is growing faster than the population turn over
“15 year old boy”….or in Ireland – A vulnerable young person.
you don’t find 15 year olds vulnerable? thats worrying
15,000 + 1,000,000+ migrants.
God help Europe. Lots of terror to come
God is the problem, she’s not going to help…
A Mormon id say
A fifteen year old with mental health issues, prozac will cure him.
Damning video of Clinton fainting at 9/11 ceremony today she had to leave early and lost a shoe.
She’s a liar and now she’s been caught again.
I’m sure the journal will get around to covering it in a day or two once they’ve picked up the correct spin from the Clinton campaign.
What’s damning about the video?
prats
Said it before. And will say it again. Devils Island. Perfect for a European Gitmo. Round every single Islamist on every European Security Service watch list and ship them out.
there’s no need to repeat yourself
If I was an Islamic terrorist organiser and had control over these 15,000, I’d tell them to act chill and continue waiting for the number grow.
“if”? sure….
Fook Pisslam.
Here we go again with the same non-sense some commenters love serving here: migrants – though the article has nothing to do with them – mean terrorist; Muslims are bad bad people; the situation is not complicated at all, it’s just a matter of political willingness to jail anyone in sight or not… And so on!
Where in my comments did I say muslims were bad people?
who says its you?
Here we go again with the same apologists sticking their heads in the sand, unable to recognise that Islam is causing more horror among its believers and to others around the world.
Tourettes Tariq should be along shortly to offer moral support to Prouesse the fucķtard
It’s a French thing. I said that the problem with Arabs in France is the fault of Sarkozy and she implied that by saying the word Arab I ment all muslims were bad. Typical French thing to do. She used a snippet of the point I was making which got a lot of thumbs up. And used it against me. Using it to mean something opposite of what I ment. I know she is French too. I looked at her profile
Brain Damage is a little angry animal that keeps on pushing little grunts.
@ al .ca You seem to have a very selective way of looking at things. Read the previous comments, and the non-sense you can find actually contains some variations.
2017. Pour Hollande? Macron? Sarkozy? Ou le Penn? Given your comments I’d say your a supporter of the latter!
Oliver, it’s not solely a French thing. It’s a standard response across Europe to those who point out integration problems. They deliberately misrepresent what you said and assume things you haven’t said or implied. It’s also used by the Islamist propagandists and those are what you’re dealing with here. Judge for yourself but I’d advise against treating them as if they were genuine.
Yes but the French are notorious for doing it constantly
I believe you. That would explain a lot about the state of the country. What’s the cause do you think?
Angry animal? You must have me confused with your child rapist prophet, fůcktard
Brain damage, you may call yourself anything you want.
Oliver I doubt a FN voter would follow the FOG. Look at my profile again… “the French” do this and that. .. just speak for yourself for a start.
@Marlow “they deliberately misrepresent what you said”… then you add “it’s also used by Islamists propagandists and those are what you’re dealing with here”. Great demonstration of contradicting what you say by your own actions.
Fdg* not the FOG …
Le Penn is compleatly against any kind of immigration to France. Same as her father was. Forgive me for making a judgement based on your comments. Le Penn wasn’t against the German occupation of France and beleaved in the one race policy his daughter marine is preaching today. The current problems regarding the anti Muslim views in France stem from the 13th November attacks. Which were committed by Belgian born jihadists! So that puts the current views of racists in France to bed
Le pen I should say
I see what you mean. The attacks in Charlie hebdo and the Hyper Casher obviously traumatised people. Some actually argue the problem regarding terrorism in France v started way before. Don’t forget what happened in 1995. This started vigipirate.
Your verbal diahorrea is getting worse, fůcktard.
I’m not forgetting 95 or af 8969! Af 8969 was hijacked because France imprisoned algierian government opponents during the civil war in 1994
These communities refused to integrate with the outside world
I’m not saying that. The Charlie hebdo attacks were terrible yes. But it that could have been avoided and so could the hyper cashier if the police had acted on the radicalization of coulibaly.
@Dain….thats exactly what it is, incoherent rubbish. That vile thing never makes any sense
@mistart and brain damage you surely fit together.
@oliver
The problem with the attack on Charlie Hebdo is that Charlie Hebdo had received several threats. That wasn’t the case for the Hyper Casher. So saying the police could have done this and that, might be valid in the case of Charlie Hebdo only.
And no, “these communities” did not refuse to integrate at all! They had to fight to get some attention and a few infrastructures. But it’s not over yet. For example, it could be nice to see experienced teachers in schools in difficult areas instead of sending those who just finished their training. “Those communities” don’t decide which teachers they can find in schools. Get it?
Look I’m from Bordeaux. I have a friend of mine who is a secondary school teacher in Marseille. In one of those schools. She got punched in the face by a group of Moroccan thugs from one of the cites. Luckily the police did something as the attack was caught on cctv .and your saying they want to integrate? I’m not saying that the hyper casher had got threats. The radicalization of coulibaly should have been flagged by the police when he left prison. And plus 2 hours after the bataclan attack abdelsalam got passed a police checkpoint in northern France on his way back to Belgium!
have your say