West must move faster to prevent a catastrophe in northern Syria

Jamie Detmer is Opinion Editor at POLITICO Europe.

On the “treacherous night” of the deadly earthquake that shook northern Syria, Idris Nasan, a Kurdish official living in Raqqa, was startled by the shaking of his apartment.

“My body was trembling, the place was filled with noise; The building turned into a swing, leaning left and right,” he said.

Accompanied by his wife and mother, Naason descended three flights of stairs, joining neighbors who “like birds fleeing snakes of prey” made their chaotic exit. The stairs echoed with the screams and shrieks of frightened children.

The scenes outside were “beyond bearable”, Naason said – saying, coming from a person who had seen kobani victory And there fierce fighting between Kurds and Islamic State militants. But, he said, “the pain of the earthquake” has been deepened by a failure to help others.

Of all the places to be tested by the grinding of tectonic plates, this is one that didn’t need to endure much pain and grief.

Syrians in Idlib and northern Aleppo, displaced from elsewhere in the war-ravaged country, more than a decade into the brutal conflict, face a gruesome descent into hell. They have faced barrel bombs; their hospitals and markets have been targeted; they have been starved; And they have been hunted by the jihadists of Al Qaeda and Islamic State. Idlib had been turned into a large “killing zone” by the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad and his Russian and Iranian backers, as rebels and their families were trapped in the area, like cattle awaiting slaughter.

Added insult to injury, since 2018Turkish authorities are blocking Syrian asylum seekers from crossing the border and refusing to register them. Turkey has also increased illegal deportations and forced some to return to northern Syria, while the European Union – fearful of another migration surge – has raised some objections to this breach of the Geneva Conventions.

Along the northern Syrian arc, a widespread complaint by Arabs and Kurds alike is that since the defeat of the Islamic State, they have been abandoned by the international community. The sense of abandonment is now compounded as they dig mass graves and grapple with the effects of the devastating earthquake.

After the deadly 7.8-magnitude earthquake on February 6 ravaged cities, destroyed homes and crushed thousands of people, the world’s attention has been mainly on Turkey – which is where Western media and International rescue teams, aid and equipment are on the way.

But across the border, little aid has arrived.

Members of Mercy Corps, a global humanitarian organization, were dispatched to rebel-held Idlib, Said“It struck my mind that some people were standing on top of the debris and listening to the voices of their families and relatives a few meters away, but they could do nothing due to lack of equipment and absence of anyone to rescue them. can do. International response to help.

Obviously, Moscow and Beijing have not been averse to trying to spin events in Syria. “The sanctions imposed by the US and its allies are hampering relief and rescue operations. , , Such a humanitarian disaster is not enough to melt America’s cold-blooded heart. bullied Global Times, the English-language mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused The “collective West”, ignoring what is happening in northern Syria, is blaming economic sanctions against the Assad government for the prolonged suffering.

Of course, these are crocodile tears coming from the Chinese Communist government which has jailed over a million Uighurs since 2015. It is also highly indecent for Russia to claim sympathy for Syria’s north, where it has flouted the laws of war and rehearsed bombing campaigns and is now using aggressive tactics in Ukraine.

However, one need not be a Russian or Chinese propagandist to anticipate the scale of the humanitarian crisis unfolding in northern Syria or to question the West’s slowness to develop an action plan to ease the suffering in Idlib and northern Aleppo Is.

Last week, EU officials denounced complaints of neglect coming from northern Syria. “I categorically reject allegations that EU sanctions could have any impact on humanitarian aid. These sanctions were imposed in response to the Syrian regime’s violent repression against its own civilian population since 2011, including the use of chemical weapons Janj Lenarcic, European Commissioner for Crisis Management told reporters, “There is nothing that should hinder the delivery of humanitarian aid and emergency aid, especially not in the situation in which the Syrian people find themselves after this terrible earthquake,” he said.

America They say It will provide additional emergency assistance and €6.5 million in emergency humanitarian assistance to both Turkey and Syria. But officials say the bloc will also need safeguards to ensure that aid effectively reaches those in need and is not misused by the Assad government – something that has plagued humanitarian aid in the past.

Indeed, funneling aid into northern Syria is fraught with a logistical and political nightmare. Idlib is controlled by a variety of feuding rebel groups, with a large portion held by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an Islamist militant group designated as a terrorist organization by the US and the Assad government. Like, a lot has been done. Accused of manipulating international aid.