It is a terrible fact that the Syrian civil war will not end in the foreseeable future and that millions of Syrians in desperate circumstances will not be able to return to their homes for many years. This means that the massive humanitarian crisis cannot be treated just as a short-term problem, but must be handled with a completely new understanding that looks at the millions of people as a long-term issue that countries from all over the world need to help. More than 2.5 million Syrians are now refugees outside the country, most of them in neighbouring Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan. In addition, the United Nations estimates that about four million Syrians are refugees inside the country. Antonio Guterres, the UN Commissioner for Refugees, has said that the generosity of Syria’s neighbours must be matched by much stronger international support, because the needs of the millions of people far exceed the resources and expertise available.
He is right. Children are growing up in tents. Couples are getting married in refugee cities. The frail and the elderly are getting their treatment in field hospitals. The fragile economies and water-stressed countries around Syria are facing genuine challenges. Lebanon is coping with more than a million refugees, in a country that can hardly manage its own affairs. Jordan is almost overwhelmed by the hundreds of thousands of Syrians in the north. And Iraq is in the midst of its own, new civil war that does not allow it to help the refugees. Turkey is relatively more prosperous, but is also struggling to cope with the hundreds of thousands of refuges that pour over its southern border.
The refugees need a new international conference to agree to a completely new arrangement under which, Syrian refugees who have been forced to flee the violence in their country, can find shelter for some years and make something of their lives in the long term, but not permanent homes. They need employment, food and housing and semblance of a normal environment that will allow them to look after their families and avoid the poverty and despair that may overwhelm them and lead to dangerously increased radicalism.
