There is a picture of a man sitting cross-legged in a sparsely furnished room. His face is calm, impassive. The beads of sweat on his brow are frozen in time, an indicator of the hot, barren heat in which he is sitting. Behind him, women, children, and other men all seemed packed into this small room. These are three Syrian families. Families that used to be happy, middle-class citizens in a small town on the Syrian border. But that life is gone, erased by bombings, gunfire, and an ever present sense of fear.
When the town of Kobani was under attack last year, this man fled with his family and just a few suitcases. Their homes were gone, their lives destroyed. This family, and many others, went for over eight days without food. Reaching the Turkish border, they believed their journey was finally over. But then they waited, and waited, and waited. Sitting in the desperate heat, they weren’t sure when (or if) they would be able to cross over in Turkey. One woman described these harrowing weeks as “the journey of death.”
When over 140,000 Syrian refuges flooded into Turkey last year, these experiences became less and less unusual. Since conflict began in Syria, this was the largest intake of refugees from Syria to Turkey. While 140,000 refugees were displaced and forced into a foreign country, the Western world was oblivious to their plight. Then the bodies came. Photos surfaced of drowned children, mostly Syrian refugees, washing up on foreign shores. Now our eyes are wide open, and we cannot ignore that something bad and something very real is happening.
What exactly is happening? The conflict in Syria has forced hundreds of thousands out of their homes and out of their country. The United Nations was very straightforward in saying that there is a humanitarian crisis in Syria. In Syria there are an estimated 12 million citizens who are trapped in the country. They are living in stark poverty, without the basic necessities of basic shelter, water or sanitation. In countries bordering Syria, such as Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, over four million refuges have raced across their borders. Raced because they are in fear that, one day, these borders might close. The closing of borders is not unrealistic. Countries like Turkey and Lebanon, who have taken over 97 percent of these Syrian refugees, are receiving little to no support from outside relief agencies. Syria has been bled dry and now other countries struggle to pick up the slack.
Now it is on us, as a global community, to help carry this heavy burden. We are failing to aid in this basic, humanitarian need. The United Nations made a 5.5. billion-dollar appeal to help assist with the crisis in Syria. That was over two years ago and only 30 percent of this money has been collected. Thirty percent in two and a half years. Relief organizations in and around Syria are running out of resources and man power. There are not enough resources for basic needs, healthcare and education. We twiddle our thumbs while the citizens of Syria spend their life savings to get on boats that will sink, or walk thousands of miles across the globe. They are risking their lives, and the lives of their families, while we sit and watch.
Of course we talk about peace. That is always the long-term plan from countries in the Western world. Eventually, we will go in and “bring peace,” save the day. We are calling for increased diplomatic efforts. However, we cannot limit our scope to fixing the political and social climate in Syria. We have to see past that and look at the mother who is desperately trying to escape to build a better life for her children. We need to see the people of the country, not the crumbling institution that the country is built on.
This is the mindset we all must have as a global society. If we want a true humanitarian effort, then we must think like the humanitarians we want to be. We need to get on the ground inside of Syria and reach out to the countries who have been carrying the brunt of the weight, in the form of supporting the refugees. Sadly, this crisis will probably fade from the headlines. Something else will happen that will capture the attention of our nation and the world abroad. However, we cannot let this issues fade from our minds. We can no longer ignore what is happening. We have seen it; our eyes have been opened. We need to let the people of Syria know that we are here, we see them and we hear them. We cannot merely watch. We must act.
