Ten years after the start of the war, 6 million Syrians have fled abroad and 7 million are internally displaced.
The Syrian people have been living in a condition of humanitarian crisis for ten years. Ten years in which humanitarian needs have increased significantly: food, shelter, medical care, infrastructure. With the passage of time, systems have failed. A recent report by the Norwegian Refugee Council, foresees with the current state of the Syrian crisis, that there could be an increase of up to 6 million more displaced persons in the next ten years. This figure would add to the already 6.5 million people currently out of their homeland.
These numbers make Syria the country with the most displaced people in the world. Further years of crisis would inevitably translate into a state of insecurity and rampant economic deterioration. The macroeconomic data is not available; the gross domestic product (GDP), according to the International Monetary Fund, is still at 2010 levels. The following trend graph indicates a “no data”.
1.8 million newly displaced people
It is estimated that in 2020, compared to almost 467,000 Syrians who returned to their country, there were about 1.8 million newly displaced within Syria itself.
Since 2011, those who have left their country have done so to seek refuge in neighboring territories such as Lebanon and Jordan, which host 1.5 and 1.3 million Syrian refugees, respectively. Many families, even since the beginning of the conflict, have been living in camps, informal settlements or houses, below the minimum standards of dignity, and do not know when they will be able to return to their city or village. Even for those attempting to return, what lie ahead is a scenario of destruction, and a lack of infrastructure and basic necessities. As also established by the United Nations, conditions are fragile in Syria, compromising a safe and dignified return for those who have found safety abroad.
Humanitarian Aid in Syria
Syria is the country with the most displaced people in the world, a record accompanied by equally dramatic numbers, such as the 11 million people in need of humanitarian aid, of which more than 4 million are children. “Those who try to return home find rubble and destruction and even for us humanitarian workers it has become difficult to reach many areas of the country,” says Marcello Rossoni, INTERSOS Regional Director for the Middle East.
“The economic conditions are alarming,” continues Rossoni. “Families do not have the opportunity to buy food or medicine and often, in order to survive they resort to ‘alternative strategies’ such as child labor, illegalities, reduction of meals in families. Most of the victims are minors who often drop out of school to find earnings to support parents, brothers and sisters”.
The Importance of Psychosocial Support in Syria
Although the conflict has now ‘stabilised’, North West and North East areas of the country remain inaccessible, security is precarious, and humanitarian assistance is minimal or impossible to guarantee. INTERSOS, in addition to intervening with a “winterization” program which consists in supplying families with blankets, clothes and any other garments useful for surviving the Syrian frost in the areas of Rural Damascus and Hama, also carries on distribution activities of primary goods needs, paths of protection for women and minors, especially through regular psychosocial support, thanks to the funds and the support of the European Union.
The traumas that ten years of conflict leave are unimaginable. Rossoni talks about the need for even more action now, particularly in the field of primary health care: “We want to start medical interventions with the use of ambulatory clinics that seek to respond to primary health-related needs, especially in these months when the COVID-19 pandemic is rampant and people need to be informed and visited to check for the possible presence of symptoms related to the virus.”
With a global pandemic that rages on for over a year, the end of a multi-year war appears to be a long way off. The Syrian people can no longer tolerate a life suspended in uncertainty and devastation. The international community has the obligation to continue working towards the end of the crisis, to obtain the full opening of humanitarian spaces that allow organizations to assist people in need, the return of refugees, displaced people, the stabilization of the entire country system.