War-Torn Syria Faces Another Crisis
The world's worst humanitarian crisis meets the worst public health catastrophe in a century.
Phillip | 11/28/20
The coronavirus has had an effect on every nation. This series covers single nations and their responses to the coronavirus.
While America’s shortcomings on the coronavirus are well documented, many other countries don’t even have the opportunity to squander their resources as we have. Syria, whose citizens have been scattered abroad like dust in the wind after a civil war, has been ostensibly unified by authoritarian Bashar al-Assad. Now, the coronavirus moves undetected through the country and has led other nations to turn their backs on Syrian refugees.
In 2011, the Arab Spring began: a movement across North Africa and the Middle East for democracy. Only the initial state, the cigarette stub igniting the forest, Tunisia, achieved a stable, albeit flawed, democracy; the other countries faced lengthy military coups, civil wars, and foreign interventions. Syrians who hoped that Assad would be more democratic and less corrupt than his father were disappointed. Peaceful protests were violently oppressed by the regime and scenes of police abuse spread rapidly through social media. As both sides became more violent, the situation gave way to a convoluted civil war.
After economic sanctions failed and the UN Security Council remained divided between Russia and China, and everyone else, Obama continued America’s history of Middle Eastern intervention and deployed troops in Syria. Our troops, only about 2,000, trained the Kurds and found success in pushing out ISIS. However, Iran and Russia invested huge numbers of troops into fighting, more than doubling Assad’s army. The US’s coalition continued sporadic missile strikes, but then Trump withdrew American troops, abandoning our Kurdish allies. Assad has effectively won the war and united Syria, although small blots of resistance remain in the north-east.
The Syrian refugee crisis was one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world before the coronavirus. During a civil war in which neither side seemed to care about the citizens or cities that they supposedly professed their love to, 200,000 civilians died and 13.5 million people were displaced. Around half of these people were displaced internally and the other half fled to other countries; all were in desperate need of humanitarian support. Turkey, which shares a north-western border with Syria, took 3 million in. America, land of immigrants, welcomed a paltry 18,000. Refugees attempting to cross the Mediterranean by makeshift boat washed up on the shores of European countries by the dozen.
Today, 90% of Syrian refugees living in other countries are in overcrowded urban areas. Those who were internally displaced often live in houses in disrepair. Crowding and lack of sanitation create conditions that allow the spread of coronavirus. In addition, these new immigrants lack political power, which means that few can stand up for their rights: many may not speak the language and are usually disliked in their new country.
In Syria, Assad instituted a curfew, which has the effect of controlling both the virus and his people. Indeed, the massive government control needed to combat the virus has led to fears of authoritarians solidifying their power; in America, protesters have been outraged by lockdown orders and even mask mandates. While Assad reports only 7,635 cases and 404 deaths, it's difficult to know the true situation because of a lack of testing and suppression of information.
In the last rebel-held province of Idlib, cases are rising, partially because frequent washings and social distancing are nearly impossible. Given the already poor health infrastructure, further weakened by war, and now overloaded by the coronavirus, it’s obvious why global health officials are concerned. Out of the eight hospitals in the region, seven are already at capacity. In fact, Idlib reported 11,900 cases by November 16th, which is up more than 8,100 from the prior week, and already exceeds the reported case count in the rest of Syria.
Although the government has no regard for coronavirus, life goes on for the refugees — many of whom need vaccination for common diseases, which more developed countries have already eradicated, and other basic aid. In Syria, these basic humanitarian needs were already hard to fulfill with the bullets flying; now they are nearly impossible. Even once the war ends, Assad has shown little care for his people’s well being and may not wish to rebuild the country, instead, perpetuating the inequality that caused the civil war.
“The epidemic has bolstered the cause of those who have long opposed refugees — most of them the same parties and politicians who advocate for strict border controls. But if the public debate plays up the perceived link between the virus, borders, and migrants, this will come dangerously close to arguments about national purity and racial superiority.” Pawel Zerka of the European Council on Foreign Relations.
While globalism has increasingly connected the entire world, coronavirus may end up closing borders and inflaming xenophobia. Decreased globalization and increased hostility toward refugees are closely linked. Turkey, because of its proximity, was the main country to accept Syrian refugees. However, as the Syrian army approached the northern border, Turkey faced a new influx of refugees fleeing the fighting and opened its border with the E.U. to allow refugees to flee to Greece. Turkey’s weariness and annoyance at the refugees may lead to more major changes — even before the coronavirus, Erdogan planned to send one million refugees back to Syria.
The backlash against Syrian refugees has already caused a resurgence of far-right parties in Europe, whose countries’ proportional representation systems with multiple parties has allowed fringe ethno-nationalist factions to gain footholds in government. We have already seen the effects of decreasing globalism and increasing nationalism in Britain and America: Boris Johnson secluded his country by removing them from the European Union, and Donald Trump adopted an “America First” mentality and withdrew from many international treaties such as the Paris Climate accords.
In June, the EU and UN agreed to provide $7.7 billion to humanitarian efforts. Meanwhile, America’s stimulus packages during the coronavirus total hundreds of times more than this. As Syria is in a much worse position than America, this aid is a small fraction of the amount of money it will take to rebuild the country. Because of the many problems facing the people of Syria, things will get much worse before they can get better.
While America’s shortcomings on the coronavirus are well documented, many other countries don’t even have the opportunity to squander their resources as we have. Syria, whose citizens have been scattered abroad like dust in the wind after a civil war, has been ostensibly unified by authoritarian Bashar al-Assad. Now, the coronavirus moves undetected through the country and has led other nations to turn their backs on Syrian refugees.
In 2011, the Arab Spring began: a movement across North Africa and the Middle East for democracy. Only the initial state, the cigarette stub igniting the forest, Tunisia, achieved a stable, albeit flawed, democracy; the other countries faced lengthy military coups, civil wars, and foreign interventions. Syrians who hoped that Assad would be more democratic and less corrupt than his father were disappointed. Peaceful protests were violently oppressed by the regime and scenes of police abuse spread rapidly through social media. As both sides became more violent, the situation gave way to a convoluted civil war.
After economic sanctions failed and the UN Security Council remained divided between Russia and China, and everyone else, Obama continued America’s history of Middle Eastern intervention and deployed troops in Syria. Our troops, only about 2,000, trained the Kurds and found success in pushing out ISIS. However, Iran and Russia invested huge numbers of troops into fighting, more than doubling Assad’s army. The US’s coalition continued sporadic missile strikes, but then Trump withdrew American troops, abandoning our Kurdish allies. Assad has effectively won the war and united Syria, although small blots of resistance remain in the north-east.
The Syrian refugee crisis was one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world before the coronavirus. During a civil war in which neither side seemed to care about the citizens or cities that they supposedly professed their love to, 200,000 civilians died and 13.5 million people were displaced. Around half of these people were displaced internally and the other half fled to other countries; all were in desperate need of humanitarian support. Turkey, which shares a north-western border with Syria, took 3 million in. America, land of immigrants, welcomed a paltry 18,000. Refugees attempting to cross the Mediterranean by makeshift boat washed up on the shores of European countries by the dozen.
Today, 90% of Syrian refugees living in other countries are in overcrowded urban areas. Those who were internally displaced often live in houses in disrepair. Crowding and lack of sanitation create conditions that allow the spread of coronavirus. In addition, these new immigrants lack political power, which means that few can stand up for their rights: many may not speak the language and are usually disliked in their new country.
In Syria, Assad instituted a curfew, which has the effect of controlling both the virus and his people. Indeed, the massive government control needed to combat the virus has led to fears of authoritarians solidifying their power; in America, protesters have been outraged by lockdown orders and even mask mandates. While Assad reports only 7,635 cases and 404 deaths, it's difficult to know the true situation because of a lack of testing and suppression of information.
In the last rebel-held province of Idlib, cases are rising, partially because frequent washings and social distancing are nearly impossible. Given the already poor health infrastructure, further weakened by war, and now overloaded by the coronavirus, it’s obvious why global health officials are concerned. Out of the eight hospitals in the region, seven are already at capacity. In fact, Idlib reported 11,900 cases by November 16th, which is up more than 8,100 from the prior week, and already exceeds the reported case count in the rest of Syria.
Although the government has no regard for coronavirus, life goes on for the refugees — many of whom need vaccination for common diseases, which more developed countries have already eradicated, and other basic aid. In Syria, these basic humanitarian needs were already hard to fulfill with the bullets flying; now they are nearly impossible. Even once the war ends, Assad has shown little care for his people’s well being and may not wish to rebuild the country, instead, perpetuating the inequality that caused the civil war.
“The epidemic has bolstered the cause of those who have long opposed refugees — most of them the same parties and politicians who advocate for strict border controls. But if the public debate plays up the perceived link between the virus, borders, and migrants, this will come dangerously close to arguments about national purity and racial superiority.” Pawel Zerka of the European Council on Foreign Relations.
While globalism has increasingly connected the entire world, coronavirus may end up closing borders and inflaming xenophobia. Decreased globalization and increased hostility toward refugees are closely linked. Turkey, because of its proximity, was the main country to accept Syrian refugees. However, as the Syrian army approached the northern border, Turkey faced a new influx of refugees fleeing the fighting and opened its border with the E.U. to allow refugees to flee to Greece. Turkey’s weariness and annoyance at the refugees may lead to more major changes — even before the coronavirus, Erdogan planned to send one million refugees back to Syria.
The backlash against Syrian refugees has already caused a resurgence of far-right parties in Europe, whose countries’ proportional representation systems with multiple parties has allowed fringe ethno-nationalist factions to gain footholds in government. We have already seen the effects of decreasing globalism and increasing nationalism in Britain and America: Boris Johnson secluded his country by removing them from the European Union, and Donald Trump adopted an “America First” mentality and withdrew from many international treaties such as the Paris Climate accords.
In June, the EU and UN agreed to provide $7.7 billion to humanitarian efforts. Meanwhile, America’s stimulus packages during the coronavirus total hundreds of times more than this. As Syria is in a much worse position than America, this aid is a small fraction of the amount of money it will take to rebuild the country. Because of the many problems facing the people of Syria, things will get much worse before they can get better.