Remove Syrian civilians from conflict areas
As the Syrian civil war enters its 8th year on March 15, military aircraft hit targets in the besieged Damascus suburb of Ghoutta, not long after the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution calling for a 30-day ceasefire. UN Secretary General António Guterres said the local population is living in “hell on earth”. Calls […]
As the Syrian civil war enters its 8th year on March 15, military aircraft hit targets in the besieged Damascus suburb of Ghoutta, not long after the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution calling for a 30-day ceasefire. UN Secretary General António Guterres said the local population is living in “hell on earth”. Calls for cease-fires have gone unheeded with many Syrians, as an alternative for a much-needed reprieve, left with trying to reach out on their own through social media.
The UN resolution called for an immediate start to the ceasefire and unfettered humanitarian access without delay. But undeterred, after the ceasefire vote, Syria’s UN Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari said the regime would continue to go after what it called terrorist groups. Some 393,000 people are reportedly trapped in the besieged Eastern Ghouta enclave and food and medical stocks are said to be dwindling with aid trucks unable to get in.
Government forces have taken 10% of the area, according to Syrian state media. They said the army has advanced on several fronts and while increasing pressure on several fronts, has taken control of villages and farms while attacking from the eastern side of the enclave. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, supported by Russia, Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, has made many gains in various fronts in this brutal civil war.
Human Rights monitors say residents are reported to be fleeing the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta enclave in Syria as the fighting intensified since February 18 and has left hundreds of people dead, many of them children. A besieged rebel stronghold near Damascus, population 400,000, Ghoutta district was where President Bashar al-Assad’s government forces were alleged to have dropped chemical weapons in 2013. The governments of majority-Shia Iran and Iraq, the Lebanese Hezbollah, as well as Russia remain staunch supporters of al-Assad while Sunni-majority countries including Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia as well as the US and Israel support anti-Assad rebels.
Since the Syrian civil war started in 2011, more than 465,000 Syrians have been killed in the fighting, mostly women and children, with over 12 million displaced from their homes. Millions of Syrians have taken refuge in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and as far afield as Germany and North America. Since 2016, Turkish troops have launched several operations against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) near its borders, as well as against Kurdish groups armed by the United States of America which has armed anti-Assad rebel groups and led an international coalition bombing ISIL targets since 2014. In December 2016, the Syrian army scored its biggest victory against the rebels when it recaptured the strategic city of Aleppo. Since then, the FSA has controlled limited areas in north-western Syria. Since January 2018 it has been fighting with Turkey to capture Afrin from Kurdish fighters seeking self-rule.
The UN’s insistence on providing safe corridors for the delivery of food, water and medicines to besieged people in the war torn country is dressed up as a humanitarian effort. In reality however, it prolongs the war and people’s suffering by encouraging the civilians to stay pout and be used as human shield by the anti-Assad guerrillas. Just as earlier happened in Aleppo, the anti-Assad guerrillas are only able to maintain the fight by using human shields, without which they would have been utterly crushed by now.
We therefore urge the UN to change its stance from merely seeking to supply food and water to civilians in besieged places to a more robust policy of removing civilians from the theatres of conflict to safer and peaceful areas until a final peace agreement can be negotiated between the belligerents. From the beginning we criticised the Western powers’ hypocritical “regime change” stance in Syria. Now that it is clear to everyone that that option is out, the UN should try to end the people’s suffering by removing them from the conflict, instead of encouraging their use as human shield.