Dateline: Aleppo, Syria
The humanitarian crisis in Syria remains critical despite receiving less media coverage since the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine have recently dominated the headlines.
The Human Rights and Rule of Law index currently ranks Syria worse than Somalia, Mauritania, and Sudan. As of 2023-24, Human Rights Watch ranks Syria in the same stratum as Yemen and DR Congo.
Skyrocketing Western food prices opportunistically initiated during Covid have led to massive food shortages throughout the region. Essential medical supplies and food shortages have been further compounded by artificially inflated fuel prices exploitively based on the war in Ukraine, a perfect food-fuel storm of disaster capitalism driven by corporate greed. And this is only part of the problem. Exacerbating the very limited aid reaching the region is the forcible disappearance and habitual detainment of refugee aid workers. In Syria, detention typically means torture.
Amnesty International’s secretary general, Agnes Callamard, said, “Both the UK and US governments have played a central role in the creation and maintenance of this system in which hundreds have died preventable deaths, and must play a role in changing it.” Yet, on the ground envoys of these countries are often detained or taken into custody when they attempt to do so.
In the first three months of 2024, British national aid worker Nigel Fletcher-Morris was unlawfully imprisoned for 10 days by the SDF just two weeks before American James Wusterbarth was detained by Assad’s Syrian Military Police under similar circumstances.
UNESCO has a duty to displaced and starving refugees and detainees more now than ever, especially as both US and UK resources continue to focus on Gaza and Ukraine.
