PerspectiveEurope’s Fear of Refugees Is the Only Thing That Can Save Syria

Published 4 September 2019

Since last April, the Syrian government has been on a rampage, deliberately targeting civilians in Idlib province, and continuing a deliberate campaign of destroying medical facilities. Bashar al-Assad’s regime and his Russian allies have bombed health facilities 521 times since the start of the conflict. Yet, at last month’s G-7 summit in France, Idlib went unmentioned in the discussions over global security. “The West, it seems, is haunted more by the specter of the refugee than by the suffering of children. To break through this apathy, Syrians will have to use the only leverage available to them: The threat to flee toward Europe once again,” Muhammad Idrees Ahmad writes in Foreign Policy.

Since last April, the Syrian government has been on a rampage, making life in Idlib dangerous once more. Even so, no one wants to live near a hospital. Bashar al-Assad’s regime and his Russian allies have bombed health facilities 521 times since the start of the conflict. The United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Syria has charged the regime and its allies with having “systematically targeted medical facilities.” Indeed, civilians are more at risk being next to a hospital than being near a front line. And children are more endangered in schools; 87 education facilities have been attacked just since April.

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad writes in Foreign Policy that this is a deliberate and sustained assault on a civilian population. But the sheer predictability of the attacks has robbed it of its news value. With Syria out of the headlines as Brexit, Kashmir, hurricanes, and Hong Kong dominate the news, close to 900 people have been killed since the regime renewed its assault in April, one-third of them children.

An additional 576,000 Syrians have been displaced, most of them already refugees. The bombing has targeted homes, camps, bakeries, and markets. It has also targeted water facilities, making diseases common. Over 40,000 people in Idlib have contracted tropical diseases in just the past two months due to the lack of clean water and sanitation.

Yet, at last month’s G-7 summit in France, Idlib went unmentioned in the discussions over global security. In a reversion to an earlier norm, security was defined exclusively in terms of terrorism. By diverting the focus onto nonstate actors, world leaders were able to evade the political complications of acknowledging state crimes.

“By bribing Turkey to keep Syrian refugees out of sight, the European Union has been able to keep Syrian suffering out of mind,” Ahmad writes. “The West, it seems, is haunted more by the specter of the refugee than by the suffering of children. To break through this apathy, Syrians will have to use the only leverage available to them: The threat to flee toward Europe once again.”