On March 15 this year, Syrian
civil war completed its sixth year, and going by the state of affairs now, even
after the first ever direct US missile attack on a Syrian regime airbase, no
end looks in sight.
The result is the human cost
- the biggest human crisis since the World War II.
Since the beginning of the
Syrian civil war, around 5,00,000 Syrians have been killed in the civil war,
some 7,00,000 are trapped in various conflict theatres and over 6 million are
internally displaced.
To cap it is the number of Syrian
refugees. According to the UN, at the end of March 2017, the number of registered
Syrian refugees, scattered in different countries, stood at 5.1 million. It is
more than ten times the count of Syrian refugees in 2012. And the actual number
may be even higher. Unofficial figures quote over 7 million Syrian refugees and
over 12 million internally displaced.
Dependent and helpless,
children are the biggest losers in any civil war. According to UNICEF, 23
million Syrian children had to flee the country while another 3 million are
living in conflict theatres and cut-off regions and they need immediate help. According
to the website http://www.iamsyria.org, the Syrian civil has killed around over
50,000 children.
12 million human lives,
including millions of children, dead, trapped in conflict theatres, forced to flee
their homes and even their country, that is the human cost the Syrian civil war
and it is still unfolding.
According to a report from
the Syrian Centre for Policy Research, the ongoing Syrian civil war has wiped 11.5
per cent of the Syrian population.
Thousands have died in their desperate
rush to cross the Mediterranean Sea to find refuge in Europe, 5000 of them
alone in 2016.
Thousands of them have been
killed in chemical attacks. Though under international pressure, in 2013, Syria
signed the Convention on Chemical Weapons that bans production, storage, use
and transportation of chemical weapons, it has been alleged that Syria never
disclosed its full chemical arsenal for international inspection and destruction.
And these allegations are not
baseless. A recent ABC News report, quoting the White House, speaks about at
least over a dozen chemical attacks in Syria since 2012. These include the
chemical attack of August 2013 in Aleppo which killed around 1500 people and
left thousands others crippled with symptoms of nerve gas attack. There was an
international hue and cry but the responsibility could not be affixed.
Yesterday's US missile attack
on a Syrian airbase was in response to a chemical attack in Syria's Idlib city which
killed over 100. It was the first direct US military attack on Syria and was
targeted at a Syrian airbase that was reportedly used to launch the Idlib
chemical attack. Syria has denied its hands and its ally Russia has strongly
defended it. On the contrary, it has blamed the Syrian rebels for the attack,
like it does every time.
The never ending Syrian
crisis has forced the biggest migration of people since the Second World War –
a wave that countries, especially the European ones are feeling too difficult a
crisis to handle. Syrians are the biggest migrants group in Europe – those who
have got asylum – those who are still waiting in the ‘nowhere’ zone – and those
who lost their lives while trying to reach those elusive borders of the
European continent.
©SantoshChaubey