The Syrian Crisis as you are experiencing it…
It’s a typical Tuesday evening on 2011… It’s March, you’re at work and you are really counting the hours to get home. Finally your personal ‘’hell’’ ends and you’re heading home to deal with a real hell: You listen to the radio that in Syria- a country very far from you that you don’t care that much- a civil war has erupted… Something about peaceful protests that ended up in blood due to regime, innocent boys killed, etc. For one moment you feel sad, but you immediately change station, because you already have a lot in your mind, listening to your pop songs. Alright, all good, hoping you will never need to listen about this again and that it will end soon.
But it does not.
Suddenly all the News talk about it, you get informed about groups of armed rebels that take action against government and that the regime releases terrorists and criminals to create panic and chaos amongst Syria.
You are starting to feel anxious, as between 2011–2014 three camps are created: ISIS (a terrorist organization), the Rebels who are supported by the Kurds, the Gulf States, USA, Jihadist Jabhat Alnursa and Turkey and the Regime Supporters (Assad, Hezbollah, Russia and Iran).
During this period, you are experiencing Assad using chemicals on civilians (2013), ISIS spreading the chaos in March 2014, Turkey bombing Kurds and Russia bombing Rebels instead of ISIS (2015), Assad winning the fight in Aleppo and using chemicals again against innocents while USA bombing Assad (2017).
In 2018, the Syrian government, supported by Russia and Iran, recaptured areas in Eastern Ghouta in Damascus countryside and Daraa governorate. The Regime used a combination of unlawful tactics, prohibited weapons, indiscriminate strikes and restrictions on humanitarian aid, to force anti-government groups to surrender in these areas, resulting in mass displacement. Anti-government armed groups indiscriminately attacked neighboring government-held areas and restricted civilians’ ability to flee hostilities.
By September 2018, 5.6 million Syrians have taken refuge outside the country, the majority in neighboring countries.
It’s 2019 and you get informed that there is a ceasefire between Turkey and USA. The Kurds are fought by everyone and strike to survive and protect their country. YPG is viewed by Turkey as an offshoot of the armed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, considered a “terrorist” organization whose struggle for autonomy has killed tens of thousands of Turks over the past 35 years.
The recent Turkish operation was aimed at seizing a strip of land roughly 30km (18.6 miles) deep along the 440-km (440-mile) border between the two countries. Ankara says it wants to establish a “safe zone” there to resettle up to 2 million of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees it hosts on its soil because of the war.
The current state in Syria is disappointing: the government forces and the rebel groups are unable to defeat each other or agree on the future. The refugee problem got more complexed, as 6.2 millions had to leave their houses and 5.6 million went abroad, 367,965 dead, more than 120,000 who were not fighters, 13 million in need of humanitarian assistance, including 5.2 million in desperate need. At the same time, children can no longer go to school because their schools have been destroyed.
As for the impacts of this global crisis, the ISIS is terrorizing the whole world with attacks killing innocent people, invaluable monuments are destroyed including religious and historical places, huge migration and refugee waves in Europe — especially in Greece. Thus, xenophobia and racism are intensified, as new people with different cultures, belief, religions and economic state are trying to take part in a country’s every aspect.
After all these years, your research, the media propaganda, the huge amounts of refugee waves that strike through your door are starting to bother you making you think that this war in this far away country can affect you at all… You are now in your office, same hour but in 2019 trying to understand what to do to help these new people and help yourself adapt in this new era. This ‘’hell’’ you thought many years ago that was really far away, is now under your house, near your work, in the central boulevards and takes part in every aspect of your life…
