SYRIA

Amidst the raging chaos and devastation of civil war in Syria, the people of Syria are enduring some of the worst winter weather experienced in the Middle East for many years.

The full-scale of this developing disaster is hard to comprehend. The misery of conflict, now almost into its fourth year, coupled with the added problem of the despair of cold and hunger, is truly amounting to a catastrophe of biblical proportions. In the land of the Old Testament, seven million people have now fled their homes, and more than two million have left the country having been displaced through the ravages of war. Tens of thousands of Syrian refugees are crossing the border each day into neighbouring Lebanon in pursuit of safe haven and shelter.

Relief agencies operating within the country are reporting that vast swathes of people are starving and in desperate need of help. The difficult weather is making it hard of getting vital food, medical and aid supplies to the besieged areas. The compounding effects of war and the climate are severely hampering the logistics involved of delivering emergency supplies to many people now in desperate humanitarian need.

This week, the United Nations launched its biggest ever appeal for foreign aid, requesting nearly £4 billion from the international community to help the humanitarian effort, both in Syria and in neighbouring countries struggling to deal with the crisis and mass movement of people. Syrian refugees now make up 25 per cent of the population in Lebanon alone.

Since the ill-fated and doomed Western flirtation with military intervention over the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons in Aleppo, there has been a tendency to think that nothing else can be done. Further confusion has occurred because the West has suspended logistical help to the rebels to stop equipment and supplies falling into the hands of Islamist groups linked to Al-Qaeda. As difficult as it is, though, it must be possible to help the Syrian people in some way without interceding in the conflict itself – the choice cannot simply be between bombs or bread.

Lady Amos, the UN emergency relief coordinator, has said that the Syrian people feel they have been totally abandoned. With governments in a seemingly precarious position and unable to agree a relief strategy, there is no-doubt that citizens of the Western world would want to see their governments acting by relieving the hardships being endured by so many. The UK has been generous and at the forefront of providing humanitarian assistance, both through privately pledged donations and state funding. But in alleviating genuine suffering other countries need to show a higher level of altruism and spirit of giving. What, for example, of Syria’s oil-rich fellow Arabs? Apart from Kuwait, no Arabian state has given anything like the amount they could afford.

Within Syria itself, greater international pressure should be exerted on Bashar al-Assad to allow humanitarian corridors to be established that would allow access to the hardest-hit areas. Alarmingly, a recent UN resolution to this effect was recently opposed by Russia. If Vladimir Putin’s resolutely dogged approach in support of the Assad regime does not change tack by bringing his influence to bear on Damascus, then he must stand accused of letting the regime use the starvation of innocent civilians as a weapon of war.