Aid Groups Say World is Failing Syria’s Civilians

The Syrian conflict is a human calamity and is getting worse as aid access has decreased and humanitarian assistance remains “chronically underfunded”, according to a new report from more than 20 aid agencies.

Aid organizations sharply criticized the United Nations Security Council, saying it has failed to implement three resolutions passed last year aimed at protecting civilians and increasing aid to Syrian civilians.

“In the 12 months since Resolution 2139 was passed, civilians in Syria have witnessed ever-increasing destruction, suffering and death,” the Failing Syria report says, whose signatories include OXFAM, the Norwegian Refugee Council and Save the Children.

“The bitter reality is that the Security Council has failed to implement its resolutions,” said Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council.

As violence intensified in 2014, the number of deaths in the Syrian conflict rose dramatically.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 2014 was the deadliest year so far in conflict. More than 76,000 people were killed last year, nearly 18,000 of them civilians.

Needs in Syria have increased by 31 percent since 2013, with 5.6 million children now in need of aid, up from 4.3 million children in December 2013. In contrast, the humanitarian response has decreased compared to needs: In 2013, 71 percent of the funds needed were provided to support civilians inside Syria and refugees in neighboring countries. In 2014, this had declined to 57 percent. Syria now has the second-largest refugee population in the world after the Palestinians, with a drastic leap in the number of refugees during 2014, from 2.4 million to 3.8 million.

“This spiraling catastrophe is a stain on the conscience of the international community,” the report wrote.

Another U.N.-backed report released on Wednesday said the war had plunged 80 percent of Syrians into poverty.

“Almost three million Syrians lost their jobs during the conflict, which meant that more than 12 million people lost their primary source of income, the report by The Syrian Center for Policy Research said, and unemployment surged from 14.9 percent in 2011 to 57.7 percent at the end of 2014,” Al Jazeera reports.

Separate analysis released Wednesday by WithSyria, a coalition of more than 100 humanitarian and human rights organizations said that the number of lights visible over Syria at night had fallen by 83 percent since March 2011.

Aleppo Near Complete Destruction Following Four Years of Conflict

“Aleppo had withstood more than six millennia of pillage and insurrection, but the past three years have damaged more of its civilisation and displaced more of its people than perhaps all its earlier conflicts,” the Guardian writes.

Aleppo is divided between Syrian regime and opposition forces, the Syrian regime controls the west and the armed opposition runs the east.

According to the Guardian, nearly 40 percent of eastern Aleppo has been destroyed and entire neighborhoods have been leveled by explosions that have systematically targeted roads around the city, breadlines, hospitals, fuel lines. Education has all but come to a complete stop and medical care has been stripped back to the basics.

Eastern Aleppo’s prewar population of about a million has plunged to 40,000. Those remaining have survived without running water or electricity for over a year. They have resorted to stripping bark off trees and burning furniture to stay warm.

U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura has been working since October to advance a proposal for local cease-fire or “incremental freeze zones” across Syria, starting with the city of Aleppo, in an attempt to halt the fighting and provide humanitarian aid to civilians.

He announced last month that Syria was prepared to suspend its aerial bombardment of Aleppo for a period of six weeks as part of a trial cease-fire.

Turkey Shuts Border Crossing as Conditions Worsen Around Aleppo

As violence intensified around the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, Turkish authorities shut down two border crossings with Syria as a security precaution, Reuters reports, citing Turkish customs and government officials.

The border crossings of Oncupinar and Cilvegozu in Turkey’s southern Hatay province were closed and vehicles and individuals have been restricted from crossing from Syria since Monday.

“Turkey has some security concerns and it is natural for measures to be taken based on the threat assessment conducted. This is what is also expected by Turkey by the international community,” said an official at a government agency, who declined to be identified.

The officials did not indicate when the crossing would be reopened, but said the movement of humanitarian aid vehicles would not be affected by the crossing’s closure.

Turkey has kept its borders open to refugees since the beginning of the conflict, but has come under sharp criticism for failing to keep foreign fighters from crossing its porous border to join militant groups including the Islamic State.

The closure of the border comes after Jabhat al-Nusra launched an attack on the intelligence headquarters of Syria’s air force in Aleppo, in which dozens of Syrian security personnel, including members of the air force intelligence, pro-government militiamen, Hezbollah fighters and rebels, were killed.

Recommended Reads

• TIME: Satellite Photos Show Most of Syria Without Lights
• BBC: Syria Girls: Met Police Chief Apologizes for Letter Failure
• Wall Street Journal: How Four Years of Civil War Has Destroyed Syria
• BBC: Syria’s Next Generation
• Associated Press: Doctors’ Group Blames Government for Most Attacks on Medical Workers
• Agence France-Presse: Syria’s Assad Tightens Grip After Four Years of War
• NPR: Drawn-out Syrian Civil War Spawns a Literal Dark Age
• Newsweek: Syrian Life Expectancy Drops Over Twenty Years in Four Years