food prices
UN experts: Ukraine war also increases distress in Syria
A Syrian child receives medical treatment for malnutrition. Photo: Anas Alkharboutli/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
The pictures from Ukraine also remind of the suffering of the Syrian population. The consequences of the Russian war of aggression are likely to increase the misery in Syria.
According to UN experts, the war in Ukraine will further worsen the situation of millions of people in need in Syria.
The head of the UN Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry into Syria, Paulo Pinheiro, warned on Wednesday that the Syrian population is suffering from “crushing poverty” and is looking “into a new abyss”, especially the displaced. At the same time, he expressed the fear that the fate of civilians in Syria could now be repeated in Ukraine as a result of the Russian warfare.
According to Pinheiro, 90 percent of the Syrian population already live below the poverty line. More than 14 million people are dependent on humanitarian aid, twelve million have too little to eat. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine will increase the pressure on prices, which have already risen sharply, he said. More than half of the imported wheat comes from these two countries.
March 15 marks the eleventh anniversary of the start of the civil war in Syria. More than 12 million Syrians have been displaced since 2011, more than 7 million of them within their own country. Syria has also been suffering from a severe economic crisis for months, which has led to skyrocketing prices and severe bottlenecks in the supply of food and petrol. Due to drought and poor harvests, Syria should actually import more wheat. Helpers had already reported a hunger crisis last year.
Similar behavior by Russia as in Syria since 2015 can currently be seen “in another country”, said Pinheiro when asked whether the Russian military wanted to break up the civilian population in Ukraine, as in Syria, in order to persuade them to give up. Moscow is an important ally of the leadership in Damascus in the Syrian civil war and intervened militarily in the conflict in 2015. The Russian and Syrian air forces repeatedly bombed civilian infrastructure, including numerous hospitals.