Crisis in Syria through the eyes of Phoenix.
During the course of our Crisis Lab we were asked to study the Syrian Crisis and identify the main pillars of this difficult on-going situation. As it seems, things climaxed after a certain event.
In early 2011, a group of children in Daraa, Southwestern Syria, are arrested and allegedly tortured for scrawling a graffiti on a school wall. A graffiti reading “People want to topple the government”, was enough reason for punishing school kids, during a time when Arab Spring demonstrations overthrow governments all over the Middle East.
This decision fueled a series of events. Syrians started protesting in cities across the country, demanding that the government enacts reforms and releases political protesters. The government instead of conforming, decided to fire back and stop the demonstrations by killing dozens.
The civil war goes on and on for the last 8 years without any signs of withdrawal. Different groups keep on trying to seize control of the country:
The fighting has been between:
• Soldiers who support the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad
• Fighters known as rebels, who don’t want Assad to be in power anymore
- The group that calls itself Islamic State (IS)
While the government and anti-government protesters were fighting and wrecking havoc, IS took over large parts of Iraq and then moved into eastern Syria gaining land the size of Britain and power. More specifically, after taking over Raqqa in eastern Syria they attempted gaining control of Mosul. The Syrian government failed to block them due to the fact that they were preoccupied refuting their enemies.
The problem seems to be unsolved since other countries have taken sides in the conflict.
The Syrian government’s key supporters are Russia and Iran, while the US, Turkey and Saudi Arabia backed the rebels. The UK, France and other western countries have also provided varying levels of support to what they consider to be “moderate” rebels.
ISIS’s rise, Russia regaining their power and Europe turning a blind eye have been some key factors to the situation. With Syria’s neighbors subverted and Ascendant Iran interfering, an already bad situation is constantly aggravating.
Vladimir Putin firmly supporting Assad is providing the latter with the power needed to strengthen his domination against Islam and Syria, areas rich in oil and natural gas.
What is more, with the Americans gone, Kurds’ areas are back in Assad’s hands, after an agreement with the Turkish president. Americans were supporting the Kurds’ rights, so since their departure, Turkey tried to take advantage of a vast area. All that until the Assad’s army arrival who had the support of Russia and the Kurds. A safety zone of 30 km was created, equally controlled by Turkish and Russian forces. A significant land stripped from its people.
Εndless groups of refugees leaving Syria for all the reasons mentioned have been trying to reach Europe. European countries have agreed to keep their borders open. However, we are talking about large numbers of people who are trying to reach Europe. This is the basic reason why European countries have been contemplating with the idea of returning refugees to Turkey, an impossible matter since Turkey and the neighboring countries have been accommodating around 4,4 million refugees.
Balance has been shifted, problems have been arising and the world needs to deal with the southeastern situation where internal conflicts don’t seem to cease.
