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Al-Ahram Weekly, Egypt
July 27, 2012
Escaping the unknown
Violent street battles have now reached the Syrian capital Damascus,
with tens of thousands of refugees fleeing to neighbouring countries,
writes Bassel Oudat in Damascus
The unrest that began a week ago in the Syrian capital Damascus has
now developed from being essentially skirmishes between the Syrian
armed forces and opposition revolutionary brigades into violent
battles and urban war, the city becoming a battlefield with all types
of light and heavy weapons being used, including field artillery and
helicopters.
Residents said that cluster bombs had been used in attacks on some
residential districts and that three-quarters of the capital's
neighbourhoods had been bombed or had witnessed fierce battles. The
number of dead in Damascus alone has risen to nearly 100 every day,
most of those killed being civilians.
Heavy artillery stationed on the Qasyun hills overlooking Damascus and
under the control of the army's fourth division and the Republican
Guard led by the president's brother Maher Al-Assad has been pounding
the city day and night. Helicopters have also been hovering over the
city firing heavy automatic weapons and rockets.
Tens of thousands of residents have fled their homes to calmer
neighbouring areas, with schools and mosques filling up with refugees.
Over the past week, the sight of families living in public parks or
mosques has become common, and what has been taking place in Damascus
is a watered-down version of what has happened and what continues to
happen in other Syrian towns and cities.
Residents of the afflicted districts in Damascus have pleaded for help
from UN monitors in the city to end the bombing, but without success.
The relatively quiet areas that residents have fled to in order to
escape the bombing have themselves become disaster zones, causing yet
more residents to flee.
The Syrian-Lebanese border areas of Al-Jadida in Syria and Al-Masna'
in Lebanon have been the crossing points for thousands of Syrian
refugees, with the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) estimating
that over last weekend some 30,000 Syrians fled their homes to escape
the fighting.
Syrian refugees in Lebanon report that conditions there are difficult
and that there is medical care and accommodation for only one quarter
of the refugees. Security measures are strict, and there is a lack of
food and medicine.
Some mosques located close to the border with Syria in Lebanon have
put up signs welcoming their "Syrian brethren" as an alternative to
traditional refugee camps. Syrians continue to pour into Lebanon at an
average of 1,000 refugees a day.
Making matters worse has been the Lebanese government's refusal to
treat Syrian refugees in Lebanon, claiming that it does not have the
financial resources to do so, though Syria welcomed more than 200,000
Lebanese refugees during the 2006 war between Israel and the Lebanese
Shia group Hizbullah.
The day after the border crossing between Iraq and Syria fell into the
hands of fighters opposed to the regime led by Syrian President Bashar
Al-Assad, the Iraqi government closed the border with Syria and built
a wall to block the passage of further refugees.
Iraq has refused to receive further Syrian refugees, saying that it
cannot provide assistance or services to them and using "security
conditions" as an excuse. The move has been condemned by many Syrians,
who feel that the Iraqi government is not returning Syrian generosity
in hosting more than 1.5 million Iraqi refugees during the recent
conflicts in Iraq.
"The Syrian people, who opened their hearts and homes to the displaced
from Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq, will continue to love their Iraqi
brethren even through the Iraqi prime minister has refused to receive
Syrian refugees and shut down the border," Michel Shamas, a Syrian
human rights activist, told Al-Ahram Weekly.
"We should remind ourselves that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki
was himself a refugee in Syria when he fled the brutality of [former
Iraqi president] Saddam Hussein's regime and that Syria honoured him
and took him in for many years."
The UNHCR reported this week that the number of registered refugees in
Jordan has now reached 35,000, though more than 140,000 Syrian
refugees in Jordan are not registered with the organisation.
Some 600 Syrian refugees are arariving in Jordan on a daily basis,
with many being concerned about their fate because the Jordanian
authorities have been handing over activists to the Syrian regime for
unknown reasons.
The UNHCR stated that the number of documented Syrian refugees in
Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Turkey since the start of the uprising in
the country 15 months ago has now reached 120,000, though a large
number of Syrian refugees have also entered these four countries
without asking for international protection.
The opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) has estimated the number
of Syrian refugees in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan to be closer to
400,000, including thousands of people who have been wounded. The
number of those displaced inside Syria is estimated at more than one
million by the SNC.
The SNC has called on the UNHCR to provide them with necessary
assistance, creating an international fund and most importantly
refugee camps, field hospitals and schools for children.
"As the Syrian regime teeters on the brink of collapse, the state's
powers have been curtailed in many regions, and chaos is breaking out
everywhere. There has been a wave of emigration by Syrian Assyrians,
Armenians and Christians to European countries," Suleiman Youssef, an
Syrian Assyrian opposition activist, told the Weekly.
"These people fear the regime or the security vacuum that is likely to
occur once the regime collapses. If we want to keep Christians in
Syria, the transitional phase should not be too long, and the regime
must fall as soon as possible," he said.
Those Syrians who have not fled abroad are now dealing with difficult
and perilous conditions and are awaiting an unknown fate. Daily life
is becoming more and more difficult, as the army continues to bomb
Syrian towns and cities and the security forces continue to arrest and
torture hundreds of people every day.
As a result of the bombardments of Syrian cities, including the
capital Damascus and the commercial capital of Aleppo, most Syrian
cities have been paralysed, including public and private institutions.
Government offices have shut and shops have been emptied of goods,
with those still available being markedly overpriced. Public transport
has dropped by between 25 to 50 per cent, and the workings of the
legal system have been suspended until further notice.
Universities have been closed, and the ministry of education has
postponed exams that were scheduled to begin at the beginning of the
week to an unspecified later date.
Shops and factories have closed either because employees have not been
able to get to work or because business owners and shop keepers have
been expressing their solidarity with the uprising and responding to
calls for a general strike made by the general secretariat of the
Syrian revolution.
Public services such as post offices and communications centres have
been shuttered, as have the ministry of trade's consumer outlets.
Street cleaners have vanished from the capital, and garbage is piling
up in different districts.
The security and military forces have cordoned off Damascus,
barricading main thoroughfares that connect rural areas with the city
and banning passage into or out of Damascus. Activists say the
military has burnt thousands of hectares of agricultural land and
forests around Damascus and in rural areas near the border with
Turkey.
The UNHCR has reported that Syrian banks are no longer making cash
payments and that the cost of renting accommodation in some safe zones
has risen to more than $100 a day because people are rushing to find
housing in safe areas.
Human rights monitors have reported that more than 20,000 civilians
have now been killed in the Syrian crisis, with more than 200,000
being wounded, more than 120,000 missing and considered dead, and
thousands of homes being reduced to rubble.
Security, humanitarian and economic conditions in Syria continue to
deteriorate, and worse is expected to follow as the regime continues
its attempts to retain power. As a result, many observers believe that
neighbouring countries will have to deal with further waves of Syrian
refugees, whether they want to or not.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
July 27, 2012
Escaping the unknown
Violent street battles have now reached the Syrian capital Damascus,
with tens of thousands of refugees fleeing to neighbouring countries,
writes Bassel Oudat in Damascus
The unrest that began a week ago in the Syrian capital Damascus has
now developed from being essentially skirmishes between the Syrian
armed forces and opposition revolutionary brigades into violent
battles and urban war, the city becoming a battlefield with all types
of light and heavy weapons being used, including field artillery and
helicopters.
Residents said that cluster bombs had been used in attacks on some
residential districts and that three-quarters of the capital's
neighbourhoods had been bombed or had witnessed fierce battles. The
number of dead in Damascus alone has risen to nearly 100 every day,
most of those killed being civilians.
Heavy artillery stationed on the Qasyun hills overlooking Damascus and
under the control of the army's fourth division and the Republican
Guard led by the president's brother Maher Al-Assad has been pounding
the city day and night. Helicopters have also been hovering over the
city firing heavy automatic weapons and rockets.
Tens of thousands of residents have fled their homes to calmer
neighbouring areas, with schools and mosques filling up with refugees.
Over the past week, the sight of families living in public parks or
mosques has become common, and what has been taking place in Damascus
is a watered-down version of what has happened and what continues to
happen in other Syrian towns and cities.
Residents of the afflicted districts in Damascus have pleaded for help
from UN monitors in the city to end the bombing, but without success.
The relatively quiet areas that residents have fled to in order to
escape the bombing have themselves become disaster zones, causing yet
more residents to flee.
The Syrian-Lebanese border areas of Al-Jadida in Syria and Al-Masna'
in Lebanon have been the crossing points for thousands of Syrian
refugees, with the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) estimating
that over last weekend some 30,000 Syrians fled their homes to escape
the fighting.
Syrian refugees in Lebanon report that conditions there are difficult
and that there is medical care and accommodation for only one quarter
of the refugees. Security measures are strict, and there is a lack of
food and medicine.
Some mosques located close to the border with Syria in Lebanon have
put up signs welcoming their "Syrian brethren" as an alternative to
traditional refugee camps. Syrians continue to pour into Lebanon at an
average of 1,000 refugees a day.
Making matters worse has been the Lebanese government's refusal to
treat Syrian refugees in Lebanon, claiming that it does not have the
financial resources to do so, though Syria welcomed more than 200,000
Lebanese refugees during the 2006 war between Israel and the Lebanese
Shia group Hizbullah.
The day after the border crossing between Iraq and Syria fell into the
hands of fighters opposed to the regime led by Syrian President Bashar
Al-Assad, the Iraqi government closed the border with Syria and built
a wall to block the passage of further refugees.
Iraq has refused to receive further Syrian refugees, saying that it
cannot provide assistance or services to them and using "security
conditions" as an excuse. The move has been condemned by many Syrians,
who feel that the Iraqi government is not returning Syrian generosity
in hosting more than 1.5 million Iraqi refugees during the recent
conflicts in Iraq.
"The Syrian people, who opened their hearts and homes to the displaced
from Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq, will continue to love their Iraqi
brethren even through the Iraqi prime minister has refused to receive
Syrian refugees and shut down the border," Michel Shamas, a Syrian
human rights activist, told Al-Ahram Weekly.
"We should remind ourselves that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki
was himself a refugee in Syria when he fled the brutality of [former
Iraqi president] Saddam Hussein's regime and that Syria honoured him
and took him in for many years."
The UNHCR reported this week that the number of registered refugees in
Jordan has now reached 35,000, though more than 140,000 Syrian
refugees in Jordan are not registered with the organisation.
Some 600 Syrian refugees are arariving in Jordan on a daily basis,
with many being concerned about their fate because the Jordanian
authorities have been handing over activists to the Syrian regime for
unknown reasons.
The UNHCR stated that the number of documented Syrian refugees in
Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Turkey since the start of the uprising in
the country 15 months ago has now reached 120,000, though a large
number of Syrian refugees have also entered these four countries
without asking for international protection.
The opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) has estimated the number
of Syrian refugees in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan to be closer to
400,000, including thousands of people who have been wounded. The
number of those displaced inside Syria is estimated at more than one
million by the SNC.
The SNC has called on the UNHCR to provide them with necessary
assistance, creating an international fund and most importantly
refugee camps, field hospitals and schools for children.
"As the Syrian regime teeters on the brink of collapse, the state's
powers have been curtailed in many regions, and chaos is breaking out
everywhere. There has been a wave of emigration by Syrian Assyrians,
Armenians and Christians to European countries," Suleiman Youssef, an
Syrian Assyrian opposition activist, told the Weekly.
"These people fear the regime or the security vacuum that is likely to
occur once the regime collapses. If we want to keep Christians in
Syria, the transitional phase should not be too long, and the regime
must fall as soon as possible," he said.
Those Syrians who have not fled abroad are now dealing with difficult
and perilous conditions and are awaiting an unknown fate. Daily life
is becoming more and more difficult, as the army continues to bomb
Syrian towns and cities and the security forces continue to arrest and
torture hundreds of people every day.
As a result of the bombardments of Syrian cities, including the
capital Damascus and the commercial capital of Aleppo, most Syrian
cities have been paralysed, including public and private institutions.
Government offices have shut and shops have been emptied of goods,
with those still available being markedly overpriced. Public transport
has dropped by between 25 to 50 per cent, and the workings of the
legal system have been suspended until further notice.
Universities have been closed, and the ministry of education has
postponed exams that were scheduled to begin at the beginning of the
week to an unspecified later date.
Shops and factories have closed either because employees have not been
able to get to work or because business owners and shop keepers have
been expressing their solidarity with the uprising and responding to
calls for a general strike made by the general secretariat of the
Syrian revolution.
Public services such as post offices and communications centres have
been shuttered, as have the ministry of trade's consumer outlets.
Street cleaners have vanished from the capital, and garbage is piling
up in different districts.
The security and military forces have cordoned off Damascus,
barricading main thoroughfares that connect rural areas with the city
and banning passage into or out of Damascus. Activists say the
military has burnt thousands of hectares of agricultural land and
forests around Damascus and in rural areas near the border with
Turkey.
The UNHCR has reported that Syrian banks are no longer making cash
payments and that the cost of renting accommodation in some safe zones
has risen to more than $100 a day because people are rushing to find
housing in safe areas.
Human rights monitors have reported that more than 20,000 civilians
have now been killed in the Syrian crisis, with more than 200,000
being wounded, more than 120,000 missing and considered dead, and
thousands of homes being reduced to rubble.
Security, humanitarian and economic conditions in Syria continue to
deteriorate, and worse is expected to follow as the regime continues
its attempts to retain power. As a result, many observers believe that
neighbouring countries will have to deal with further waves of Syrian
refugees, whether they want to or not.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress