Tuesday, September 11, 2018

Syrians still suffer

The United Nations has warned of the potential for the “worst humanitarian catastrophe” of the 21st century over the impending assault on the rebel-held Syrian enclave of Idlib by government forces. 

The UN agency coordinating relief efforts in war-ravaged Syria said that 30,000 people had already been displaced, amid air strikes by Russian and Syrian government troops, and that another 800,000 could move, triggering a massive crisis. Up to three million civilians live among the farmlands and agricultural hubs of Idlib, which is militarily dominated by rebel groups that include a large contingent of fighters inspired by al-Qaeda. Idlib stands as among the last significant chunk of Syria to be held by the opposition. Fresh off victories against rebel enclaves near Damascus and in southern Syria, the capital’s ground forces are said have been building up on the outskirts of Idlib and airstrikes by Russian and Syrian jets and artillery have pummeled the region.

“There needs to be ways of dealing with this problem that don’t turn the next few months in Idlib into the worst humanitarian catastrophe with the biggest loss of life of the 21st century,” Mark Lowcock, chief of the UN’s Office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs, told a news conference.

Western officials are bracing for the disruptive impact of the offensive. Turkish officials have warned that they won’t prevent refugees fleeing Idlib from trying to reach Europe and furthering fanning xenophobia across the continent.

 “We fear a humanitarian disaster,“ said France’s armed forces minister Florence Parly

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-civil-war-idlib-province-battle-un-russia-air-strikes-assad-a8531976.html


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