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13 April 2015

The struggle for Syria

VIJAY PRASHAD

FALLEN CAPITAL: “Al-Nusra alongside the various outfits of the anti-Damascus bloc seized Idlib near Turkey’s border.” Islamic State fighters overran much of the camp last week, marking the extremists' deepest foray yet into the Syrian capital. The IS incursion in the latest trial for Yarmouk and its estimated 18,000 remaining residents, who have already survived a devastating two-year government siege, starvation and disease.

Hope for peace in Syria might no longer vest in the exhausted population. The possibility of a thaw between Iran and Saudi Arabia could lessen the geopolitical conflict in the country

Inexplicable is the fate of Syria. Its ongoing conflict has claimed the lives of more than 2,00,000 people and sent 16 million Syrians out of their homes. A donor’s conference for the humanitarian crisis in Kuwait raised $3.8 billion, less than half of what the United Nations had requested. Only half of the pledges are generally honoured, so the gap is significant. The World Food Programme’s Elisabeth Byrs said that “a critical shortage of funding” has led to a retrenchment of aid. Malnutrition and illiteracy lie on the horizon for Syrian refugees.

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