UN warns Idlib could be next Syrian disaster zone in 'marathon of pain'
The UN’s two most senior Syria experts have warned of an Aleppo-style humanitarian catastrophe in Idlib as an EU donor conference aimed to raise up to $6bn (£4bn)to help Syrians displaced both inside and outside the country.
Idlib is the last major territory still in rebel hands. It is partly held by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, a jihadi group that Russia and the Syrian government regard as a legitimate target in an area where civilians and fighters continue to pour in as part of evacuation deals in other parts of the country.
Jan Egeland, the head of the UN’s humanitarian task force for Syria, said: “All my energies currently and
in the coming weeks are dedicated to averting a fresh humanitarian disaster.”
He described Idlib as “one giant area of displacement”. “More than half of the population in Idlib of 2 million have already been displaced, sometimes multiple times, so there has to be a negotiated end to the conflict in Idlib. You cannot have a war in the midst of the largest cluster of refugee camps and displaced people in the world,” he said.
“My fear is the Syrian government will say the place is filled with ‘terrorists’ and therefore you can wage war like they did during the sieges in Aleppo and eastern Ghouta … Yes, there are bad guys wearing beards, but there are many more women and children and they deserve protection. You cannot wage war as if everyone is a terrorist, or else will it be a nightmare.”
His remarks were echoed by the UN’s special envoy on Syria, Staffan de Mistura, who said: “We hope this would be an occasion for making sure that Idlib does not become new Aleppo, the new eastern Ghouta, because the dimensions are completely different.”
A Syrian government assault on the area is likely to lead to the mass movement of people, possibly toward the Turkish border. Up to 300,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) have reached Idlib province since August, and 700,000 have been displaced across Syria since the start of the year, according to UN figures.
Egeland said: “The Syrian civil war has lasted two years longer than the second world war, and far from 2017 and early 2018 becoming a moment when the war wound down, the crisis has escalated.
“I really thought 2017 would be the last huge war year, but the crisis has continued at the same ferocity into 2018. This has become a tremendous marathon of pain.”
The two-day donor conference in Brussels, which is focused as much on the 5 million refugees displaced in neighbouring Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon as the 6 million IDPs in Syria, is the third in a series that began in the UK in 2016.
Ministers from Jordan and Lebanon repeatedly warned that the situation was putting a huge strain on their economies and social fabric. About 135,000 Syrian children have been born in Lebanon since the civil war began.
Specific pledges will be revealed on Wednesday, with western countries putting pressure on the Gulf states to commit more than in the past.
On the first day of the conference, which was dedicated to hearing the views of the huge number of NGOs delivering food and education, the UN’s undersecretary for humanitarian affairs, Mark Lowcock, said 80% of Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries were living in poverty and nearly 35% of child refugees were out of school.
Jordan’s planning minister, Imad Fakhoury, said the 1.3 million Syrian refugees in his country were costing $1.5bn, 16% of Jordanian spending and 4% of GDP. Jordan’s economy has grown by only 2% a year in the last seven years, down from 6% in 2000-10.
Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the chief executive of Save the Children, said education was the key children needed to open the door to a better life.
Neither the Syrian government nor the official opposition are attending the conference.
Egeland said: “Until three weeks ago, it appeared as if Syrian donor fatigue was kicking in … the whole humanitarian relief programme was only 7% funded for 2018, a catastrophic underfunding. In the last few weeks, the funding has tripled, if only taking it to 23%. We now have only $795m of the $3.5bn that will be needed for inside Syria.”
Another $5.6bn was needed to help refugees in neighbouring countries in 2018, he said.