At least $10 billion — this is how much the United Nations is asking to ensure vital aid to millions of destitute Syrians in the nearest future.
But at a conference in Brussels on June 30, the world community had a hard time fundraising only $7.7 billion, not even close enough to save the nation ripped by a 10-year civil war that has taken at least 400,000 lives.
Now, Syria, which faces ultimate economic downfall and mass starvation, is beset also by the coronavirus pandemic, with millions having no access to basic necessities and shelter.
And meanwhile, the UN and international charities are running low on resources to save lives, making it harder to enter the ruined country and bring food and medicine.
Displaced Syrians join a convoy driving toward the Deir al-Ballut checkpoint to return to their homes in the Aleppo province on April 11, 2020. (AFP)
Difficult times
The Brussels IV conference, which was held online due to pandemic restrictions, gathered a total of 60 governments and charities donating on aid for Syrians all across the country, no matter which party of the multisided war controls areas they live in.
In general, the donors pledged $7.7 billion, including $5.5 billion for the year 2020. Out of that amount, only $3.8 billion would be allocated for the Syrian population, while the rest is planned to be spent on over 5 million refugees seeking shelter in neighboring countries.
This constituted a considerable decrease from the last year’s conference when $7 billion were pledged on the 2019–2020 period alone.
The COVID‑19 pandemic, which hampered the global economy, has had its gruesome effect on the nations’ readiness to donate more, as the UN official noted. But even the collected amount was “not a bad outcome,” in the words of the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock.
“We recognize that circumstances are very unusual,” the official asserted on June 30.
“It’s a difficult moment in every country to find the resources necessary to relieve the suffering of the Syrian people, but it’s essential that we do go on doing that work. The situation in the region is not improving.”
The latest news from Syria offer no reasons for the smallest shade of optimism. According to the UN, at least 11 million civilians require basic humanitarian aid and protection in the 17-million country.
Moreover, some 9.3 million in the country, including 500,000 children, are constantly facing food shortages, and this number has increased by 1.4 million over the last 6 months.
“We’re seeing food insecurity rise to unprecedented levels,” as UN’s Mark Lowcock said.
80% of the country’s population stays below the poverty line, and the economic situation continues to deteriorate quickly. According to the UN, the cost of monthly food basket skyrocketed by 200% over the recent time while salaries stagnate.
The national currency, the Syrian pound, fell to an all-time low of 3,100 against $1 in the black market, and prices for all basic necessities soar at a rapid pace, too.
Young Syrian men rest at the window of a house damaged during past shelling by pro-regime forces, in the town of Binnish in the country’s northwestern Idlib province, on June 17, 2020. (AFP)
Inadequate effort
Meanwhile, the country continues bleeding in sporadic splashes of fighting between various rebel factions, including Jihadi groups, and the Russian-backed government army all across the regime-controlled territory. Besides, stalemate around the last rebel-held enclave of Idlib continues exhausting at least 3 million civilians trapped between hammer and anvil.
In addition to all the travails, the mass spread of COVID‑19 in overcrowded, poorly maintained slugs for displaced persons predictably becomes a very real danger.
Official Damascus, as of July 2, reports only 312 confirmed cases and 14 deaths, but even the World Health Organization openly admits that “official figures likely represent a significant underestimate of the true number.”
Even the UN during the Brussels conference called the regime’s lockdown effort to combat the infection spread “wholly inadequate” in the country the national healthcare of which lies in ashes.
“A country whose health system has been destroyed in the war cannot be expected to cope with COVID,” Lowcock said, adding that at least $380 million should be pledged to confront coronavirus in Syria and purchase testing kits and medical supplies.
Combating the pandemic becomes even less effective as Russia continues blocking all efforts to reopen new cross-border humanitarian lifelines from Turkey and Iraq. That would have helped relieve the situation in the most desolated areas of northwest Syria, where the UN expects a higher rate of infection in a similar fashion with what happened in Yemen and Iran.
Nonetheless, numerous charities working in Syria turned really unhappy about the amount of funds collected.
“The pledges made by donor governments are simply not enough” as Marta Lorenzo, a regional director with Kenya-based international charity Oxfam, commented in a statement on June 30.
“It’s shocking that the international community has failed to recognize the urgency of the situation, despite clear calls from Syrian civil society.”
Speaking from the city of Qamishli in northern Syria, locally-based UN worker Imran Riza said on June 30 his country, after 10 years of war, was “on the cusp of multiple crises.”
“You see kids that are clearly now getting malnourished,” he said.
“You are seeing levels of malnutrition that we have never seen in the last nine years and this gets worse and worse if you don’t take action right now.”
Turkish soldiers patrol along a road lined with destroyed buildings in the town of Ariha in the province of Idlib, Syria on May 26, 2020 (AFP)
Another mass exodus?
Indeed, according to international organizations, Syria, with half of its pre-war population having fled their homes amid war, might be facing no choice but to starve or leave the country in masses, contenting the world’s greatest refugee crisis.
“Quite frankly, what’s happening in Syria is unprecedented,” as David Beasley of the World Food Program asserted on June 29.
“We have to have the money, and we have to have the access. And I don’t mean we need to keep speculating a year from now — we need it now.”
Syria right now stands at the brink of starvation, and this can’t wait for the global community to come around and start acting, he added.
“People will die, and people are dying as we speak,” the official said.
“If we don’t have the money, here’s the bottom line: you’re going to either have mass migration, or starvation, and exploitation by extremist groups. I think the people will leave, just like they did five or six years ago.”
