In war zone of Syria, not many children are likely to ever return to school in their lifetime
New York: War ravaged Syria’s fragile economy has suffered multiple shocks over the last 18 months. Depreciation of the Syrian pound has been one of the most visible effects, with food prices jumping 200 per cent and purchasing power dwindling dramatically as result. Average household expenses now exceed income by 20 per cent and millions of people are resorting to desperate measures to survive.
Conditions in the north-west are worse than they were last July, when the Council extended its authorization for cross-border deliveries that supports 2.4 million people on average each month.In the north-east of Syria, increased tensions had caused temporary disruptions in emergency assistance for hundreds of thousands of people. While the United Nations was now working to scale up cross-line deliveries of medical supplies, only 6 per cent of public hospitals and no public health centres in the north-east were assessed to be fully functioning..
At least 60 per cent of Syrians — 12.4 million people — lack access to safe, nutritious food, and 4.5 million people have fallen into this category over the last year as per the World Food Programme (WFP) estimates. Moreover, Sonia Khush, Syria Response Director of Save the Children, told UN Security Council on February 25, 2021 that an unprecedented education crisis is unfolding in Syria. She warned that unaffordable food prices, chronic malnutrition and years of living in unsafe, unhygienic camps — now during a pandemic — most likely meant that many children will never return to school in their lifetimes.
The conflict has permeated every aspect of children’s lives, and with the COVID-19 pandemic raging on, today children in Syria face a graver reality than at any other point. Seventy‑nine per cent of teachers in Syria’s north-east region had reported that their students had dropped out of school in order to work to help their families survive. Many teachers themselves had continued to work without pay. Now, amid the pandemic, the only safe way for many children to attend school was online; yet for most Syrians, Internet access remains out of reach.
Khush pointed out that while attacks on schools continue, as does their use for military purposes, two out of every three children in northern Syria were today out of school. She recalled first-hand accounts of students hiding under school desks as buildings all around them were bombed, as well as the widespread effects of the loss of teachers and a weakened education system on children’s lives.
She also described a protection crisis, noting that millions of people in northern Syria rely on humanitarian aid delivered largely through the United Nations cross-border mechanism. In camps for internally displaced persons, food, water and hygiene needs are still not being met. Many there live in flimsy tents, highly vulnerable to flooding and extreme cold. Meanwhile, 1 in 8 children in Syria is now reported to be suffering from stunting due to chronic malnutrition, and millions go to bed hungry each night. Teenaged boys remain vulnerable to recruitment into armed groups and girls are subject to early and forced marriage.
The COVID-19 pandemic has complicated the challenges in Syria. India in the meanwhile told the Council that it stands ready to work with the United Nations to ensure the provision of India-made COVID-19 vaccine to Syria.
Khush emphasized that the tools for improving people’s lives have not changed: the prompt delivery of humanitarian assistance — coupled with prioritized investments in education, health and psychosocial services, and stronger efforts to tackle the underlying causes of the conflict — remain the best options.
Drawing attention to the plight of children in two camps of particular concern, she cited an alarming increase in security incidents in the Al Hol camp, which have disrupted the delivery of aid. “Save the Children continues to sound the alarm about the conditions in those camps, including cases of COVID-19, and recently made repeated attempts to draw the attention of Syrian authorities to the plight of a 9-year-old Azerbaijani girl in Al Hol who had fallen ill with treatable kidney disease. Tragically, those attempts were not successful, and the girl died in January,” she said.
Reinforcing those appeals, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock stressed that parents were eating less so they can feed their children, and sending them to work instead of to school. “Those who have run out of options are simply going hungry,” he warned. He pointed out that in the country, more than half a million children under age five suffered from stunting because of chronic malnutrition. “These problems are particularly visible in the north-west and north-east, where an estimated 1 in 3 children suffers from stunting,” he said.
Lowcock reported on his conversations with a doctor who warned that half of the 80 beds at his hospital were occupied by malnourished children; five children had died as a result of malnutrition within the past two months. Another pediatrician said she diagnoses malnutrition in up to 20 children a day, a problem that “has become so normal that parents cannot spot the signs in their own children”, he stressed.
Noting that the World Health Organisation (WHO) plans to deliver 50 tons of health supplies in the first quarter of 2021, he said expanding the reach of such cross-line deliveries will depend on expedited approvals and access to funding.
He also reported on the death of a humanitarian worker on 16 February, who was killed by a car bomb near a market in Al-Bab city in the north-west region, citing reports by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) of an uptick in attacks involving improvised explosive devices.
– global bihari bureau
