Crisis humanitaria (Continuación)

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The world is at last, reluctantly, looking at the horrors unfolding in Aleppo. The dictatorship of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, with the support of Iran, Russia, Hezbollah and other Iran-organized Shiite militias, has all but pulverized parts of the city, deliberately attacking hospitals and homes and targeting non-combatants and civilians.

They are carrying out a new form of ethnic cleansing, with Shiites expelling Sunnis and making it impossible for them to return to their destroyed homes.

This is hardly unexpected. It's been unfolding gradually, for all to watch. The immediate culprits are the direct perpetrators, let that be clear. But this episode marks a supreme failure of our 21st century society, our leaders, our institutions and the people who claim to care about more than their own well-being.…  Seguir leyendo »

Heartbreaking images following Aleppo airstrike

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Seventeen years ago, Kofi Annan stood before the United Nations and apologized.

The then-secretary-general acknowledged that the UN had failed the people of Rwanda during the 100-day genocide in which almost a million people were killed, and pledged to ensure that the UN would "never again" fail to protect a civilian population from genocide or mass slaughter.

In Aleppo today, Annan's promise is inaudible beneath the roar of bombs and the whimpers of children trapped under rubble, their faces caked with blood and dust.

After years of images from this atrocious war being screened around the world, they are faces we know well.…  Seguir leyendo »

Turkish Muslims pray for Aleppo victims in Istanbul on Friday. (Deniz Toprak/European Pressphoto Agency)

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Some 70 months ago, unarmed, ordinary Syrians rose peacefully against a regime whose incompetence and corruption they had come grudgingly to accept. It was their rulers’ detention and beating of children that provided the tipping point. The same regime seeks now to capitalize on a bloody victory in Aleppo, where children again have been targeted. But the actual and prospective costs associated with the deliberate slaughter of civilians in Aleppo and elsewhere in Syria are steep, and everyone connected with this abomination will pay, especially those who have stood by and watched.

For Syrians hoping for a future free of the Assad family and entourage, the price of Aleppo is bitter.…  Seguir leyendo »

Locals inspect the area around the Sahra hospital in Aleppo after a barrel bomb strike by Syrian government forces in October. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

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To complete the infamies of 2016, now comes Bashar al-Assad’s impending victory in Aleppo – today’s Guernica, even if there is no Picasso to depict it. Events in Syria define the arrival of a new barbarism. Even in the most terrible days of 20th-century conflict, combatants would respect minimum rules. Civilians were not surrogates for the enemy. Organisations such as the Red Cross – independently and impartially alleviating suffering on either side on the basis of no other value than human need – were allowed to do their work.

No more. Aleppo completes a new, dark contemporary arc that trashes respect for humanitarian principles that once seemed inviolable.…  Seguir leyendo »

An injured child waits after receiving treatment at the university hospital in a government-held neighborhood on Nov. 3, following reported rebel fire on government-held parts of the northern city of Aleppo. (GEORGE OURFALIAN/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images)

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Today, more than 250,000 Syrians remain trapped in besieged eastern Aleppo with limited access to food, clean water and medical supplies. Living under constant aerial bombardment, residents in the eastern part of the city have nowhere to go. Eastern Aleppo is expected to run out of food and medical supplies in 20 days or less, after which we risk losing more than a quarter-million people to mass starvation and restricted access to lifesaving medical care.

Of the quarter of a million people stuck in Aleppo, 100,000 are children. These children cannot eat or sleep without incapacitating fear. Every day, they experience unparalleled levels of trauma and anxiety, making them an especially vulnerable group with only 29 doctors remaining to care for them and their families.…  Seguir leyendo »

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In the years that I've been writing and talking about politics and public policy, I have learned one very sobering lesson: It's nearly impossible to get people to care about even the most troubling and horrific problems if they are happening on the other side of the world.

It's understandable. We have our own problems as a nation and as individuals. Whether it is people finding a way to pay the bills, caring for an aging parent, helping a friend get sober, surviving a divorce, or coping with cancer ... the list goes on and on of the immediate and daily concerns we often confront, leaving little room in our heads and our hearts for the plight of people a world away.…  Seguir leyendo »

Wounded opposition fighters sit in the back of an ambulance in a government-held neighborhood of Aleppo in Syria on Thursday. (George Ourfalian/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images)

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For 5½ years, the Syrian government has tortured, shot, bombed and gassed its own people with impunity, with the resulting human cost clear for all to see: nearly 500,000 dead and 11 million displaced. Since Russia’s military intervention began one year ago, conditions have worsened, with more than 1 million people living in 40 besieged communities. Thirty-seven of those are imposed by pro-government forces.

While subjecting his people to unspeakable medieval-style brutality, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has sabotaged diplomatic initiatives aimed at bringing a lasting calm to his country. The most recent such diplomatic scheme was trashed not just by Assad, but also Russia, whose aircraft were accused of subjecting a U.N.-mandated…  Seguir leyendo »

A Syrian civil defence volunteer, known as the White Helmets, holds a child after he was pulled from the rubble following an air strike on Aleppo. Photo by AMEER ALHALBI/AFP/Getty Images - See more at: https://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/comment/syria-destruction-civil-society-means-dictatorship-extremism-and-further-displacement#sthash.TtxYrYjW.dpuf

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The void in governance created by the ongoing Syrian conflict has been capitalized upon by warlords, militias and extremist groups to expand and consolidate their power – but has also helped to generate activism, with new leaders born as a reaction to authoritarian governance and conflict limitations.

As public social services have been taken over as war tools, local coordination committees, Local Councils, humanitarian support groups, citizen journalist networks, women’s groups, and more, have mushroomed across all of Syria. But this new civil society continues to be threatened by many challenges.

It remains hindered by structural weakness and limited capacity - largely as a result of the legacy of Ba’athist policies, which did not allow civil society to exist in the so-called Damascus Spring, but only under the umbrella of the Government, First Lady Asma al-Assad and business NGOs (GoNGOs, FLNGOs and BoNGOs).…  Seguir leyendo »

‘Diplomacy has failed. That is clear. Russia has intervened to save Assad and now holds most of the cards.’ The aftermath of an airstrike in a rebel-held area of Aleppo. Photograph: Abdalrhman Ismail/Reuters

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It’s a terrible thing to say, let alone to think, but anyone who cares about the plight of the civilians in Aleppo, and particularly the children, has to wonder now whether the best thing to bring the suffering to an end would be a quick victory for Bashar al-Assad.

The prospect may be indigestible. By any standards of humanity it is. But the fact is, the game is nearly over in Syria’s second city, and the president looks like being the winner. Not since the Nazis retook Warsaw in 1944 has the world seen an assault of such total ferocity as we are witnessing in Syria’s second largest city.…  Seguir leyendo »

A picture shows destruction following an air strike in the rebel-held Ansari district in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on September 23, 2016.

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Ali was clearing debris from a room that used to be part of a hospital. The ceasefire in Aleppo was still tentatively holding, and the 12-year-old boy was taking advantage of a lull in the fighting to carve out a new place to live. Shihan, a government-held area, used to be right on the front line; now, after years of fighting, it lies in ruins. Displaced people were moving into the bombed-out ruins.

"We need to clear this room and the room next door, because this is going to be our new home," Ali told me.

A few days later, however, and the war was back on.…  Seguir leyendo »

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John Major has deservedly been lauded for earmarking such a large slice of funds generated by his National Lottery initiative for Team GB’s Olympians. Given increasingly tragic events in Syria we are not, however, looking at the most relevant of the former prime minister’s achievements: his creation of safe havens for Kurds in northern Iraq and Shia Muslims in southern Iraq after the 1991 Gulf war.

Those havens were backed up by massive airdrops of humanitarian aid and no-fly zones enforced by the RAF and other western air forces. It is also notable that they lacked direct United Nations approval. The UN’s Boutros Boutros-Ghali even described them, subsequently, as “illegal”.…  Seguir leyendo »

A displaced malnourished mother and her children sit on the ground waiting for food in Bama's camp for internally displaced people (IDP), Borno State, northeastern Nigeria, 30 June 2016. AFP/STRINGER

MundoÁfrica,

Children are dying in Bama, a town in Borno state, north-east Nigeria, suffering from lack of food, clean water and medical care. They are the most tragic manifestation of the humanitarian fallout of the Boko Haram insurgency and the state response to it, a crisis that now impacts the lives of millions. The insurgency itself, the aggressive military response to it, and the lack of effective assistance, both national and international, to those caught up in the conflict threaten to create an endless cycle of violence and depredation. Unless efforts to contain and roll back the current crisis are quickly scaled-up, peace is likely to remain a distant prospect in this region of Nigeria.…  Seguir leyendo »