‘Forgotten’ war: Syria conflict a footnote at UN meeting
As dozens of heads of state convene for the annual UN General Assembly in New York this week, the lingering conflict in Syria is taking a back seat while tensions in the Arabian Gulf and global trade wars take center stage.
Now in its ninth year, many Syrians fear the unresolved war has become a footnote in a long list of world crises, with weary leaders resigned to live with Syria’s Bashar Assad ruling over a wrecked and divided country for the foreseeable future.
On the eve of the global gathering in New York, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced that a long-awaited committee that would draft a new Syrian constitution has been finalized — a step the UN hopes will put the war-ravaged country on track for a political solution.
But few see any real chance that the committee can make significant progress toward that end.
“The world has forgotten about us — not that anyone cared about Syria to begin with,” said Hussein Ali, a 35-year-old internally displaced father of two. He now lives with his family in one rented room in the opposition-controlled northern town of Azaz, near the Turkish border. “The rise of Daesh made the West care momentarily, but not anymore,” he said, using an Arabic acronym for the Daesh group.
Most of Syria has returned to regime control after eight years of war. The exceptions are the opposition-held bastion of Idlib in the northwest, where fighters, militants and their families from all over the country have been cornered, and the oil-rich northeast, held by US-backed Kurdish groups.
A frozen conflict
The violence has largely tapered off in most of the country, but few among the nearly 6 million refugees scattered across the globe have returned. Many fear detention if they come home — or they simply have no homes to return to.
Entire towns and villages are in ruins. The West will not contribute to reconstruction plans as long as Assad is in power and other countries are unwilling to invest without there first being a political settlement. In Idlib, a Russia-backed regime offensive to recapture the province continues to claim lives. Hundreds have been killed and more than 400,000 displaced in the past four months under Syrian and Russian airstrikes. But the bloodshed hardly makes a dent in global news.
“The world apparently has long since tired of the war, and resigned itself to frozen conflict, with a nationwide cease-fire as the best possible scenario,” said Heiko Wimmen, project director for Iraq, Syria and Lebanon at International Crisis Group.
Syria’s conflict was a domino effect of the so-called Arab Spring uprisings that began in late 2010, toppling dictators in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. What started in March 2011 as largely peaceful demonstrations against the Assad family rule turned into an armed insurgency following a brutal regime crackdown. The conflict eventually became a proxy war pitting the US, Turkey and Gulf countries who supported the opposition, against Russia, Iran and Hezbollah who fought alongside the regime. In the chaos, extremists such as Daesh flourished, seizing a third of Syria and Iraq.
Nearly half-a-million people have been killed and half of Syria’s prewar population displaced. The opposition has been crushed for the most part, and Assad is widely considered to have prevailed militarily. Daesh militants who dominated the news for years have been defeated, although the group continues to stage sporadic insurgent attacks. A tentative cease-fire has been in place in Idlib since the end of August, but there is no suggestion it will be anything other than a pause before regime troops and their allies regroup and relaunch their campaign.