Review of Syria’s decade long war

Cars covered in vines in Syria Cars covered in vines in Syria Photo by Rami Maradni on Unsplash

 

29 March 2021

An overview of Syria’s past decade of war and civilian casualties at the hands of armed conflicts throughout the country.

The United Nations (UN) published a report detailing the humanitarian situation in Syria on 29 March, 2021, and the results were not positive. Mark Lowcock, the Humanitarian Affairs chief for the UN, claimed that the situation in Syria is currently dire and, without humanitarian aid, is only going to get worse.

Lowcock also points out that there are approximately 13.4 million people expected to require humanitarian aid in 2021, which is 20 percent higher than the number of people expected to require humanitarian aid in 2020. Without help from an outside source, innocent civilians in Syria are on the verge of perishing at the hands of armed conflicts in the nation.

A key problem facing the UN humanitarian aid efforts in Syria is the frequency of airstrikes and bombings over many of the most integral refugee sites. The Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC) explained how there is an intolerable level of danger in the Al Hol refugee camp that “threatens the UN’s ability to operate.” According to the ERC, there have been 41 residents of the refugee camp who have been murdered in 2021 as of 29 March. The refugee camp houses almost 40,000 children, 30,000 of whom are under 12 years of age.

Lowcock highlighted in his report how “75 percent of the more than four million people in northwest Syria depend on aid to meet their basic needs and almost 85 percent are reached monthly through cross-border assistance.” There is a strong need for a domestic aid resource so that crossing the border is not as necessary. This would allow the refugee camps to receive greater amounts of aid at higher frequencies.

 

To know more, please read:

https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/03/1088592

https://reliefweb.int/report/syrian-arab-republic/syrians-mark-decade-bloody-war-secretary-general-tells-brussels

https://reliefweb.int/report/syrian-arab-republic/decade-war-syria-medical-personnel-syria-need-better-protection

 

Author: Gabriella Pavlakis; Editor: Sitara Sandhu

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