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Syria’s Tragedy… A Bottomless Abyss

Women walk near rubble inside the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp on the southern outskirts of Damascus, Syria November 2, 2022. REUTERS/Firas Makdesi
Women walk near rubble inside the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp on the southern outskirts of Damascus, Syria November 2, 2022. REUTERS/Firas Makdesi
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Syria’s Tragedy… A Bottomless Abyss

Women walk near rubble inside the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp on the southern outskirts of Damascus, Syria November 2, 2022. REUTERS/Firas Makdesi
Women walk near rubble inside the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp on the southern outskirts of Damascus, Syria November 2, 2022. REUTERS/Firas Makdesi

Every time we think that the Syrian crisis has hit rock bottom, we discover that we’re wrong. The latest cholera outbreak in the war-torn nation and refugee camps in neighboring countries is yet another evidence that the Syrian crisis is a bottomless abyss.

This was a Western diplomat’s comment after returning from Syria, a country he had visited from time to time in recent years as part of his work as an envoy.

According to the diplomat, years of war in Syria resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, half the population abandoning their homes, and more than seven million IDPs. Two million IDPs in Syria are staying at random camps, while around seven million refugees have sought asylum in neighboring countries.

Moreover, Syria’s infrastructure has sustained severe damage, health services are near non-existent, schools remain shut, and the country is divided into three microstates hosting foreign armies and militias.

“We previously thought that the painful stalemate was the Syrian rock bottom, then the situation sank further with the spread of the coronavirus pandemic and the economic collapse in neighboring Lebanon,” the diplomat noted, adding that the war in Ukraine had also increased the suffering of Syrians in all regions.

“The Ukraine crisis had overshadowed the Syrian crisis before the international community,” they explained.

Syria’s new rock bottom is a dire cholera outbreak. According to the UN, this epidemic is spreading rapidly throughout Syria and Syrian refugee camps, especially in Lebanon. More than 24,000 suspected cholera cases have been reported, infections have been confirmed in all 14 Syrian governorates, and at least 80 people have died.

The UN has raised the alarm, appealing to donors to provide funds for health services. But the latest numbers could have been promising. The money donors promised to deliver at the previous conference was about four billion dollars, of which only a third has been deposited. At best, half of the donations will reach Syria by the end of 2022.

Donor countries are preoccupied with economic crises, collapses, and pledges in the Ukrainian war.

Syria is already forgotten. For the first time, the Brussels Conference on Syria was not held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. Also, high-profile political meetings on Syria were not convened.

Even the constitutional committee meeting, which included talks among the Syrian factions in Geneva, was shelved. Moscow had canceled the meeting in protest of the position of Switzerland and the West in Ukraine.

The illusion of a political process with international facilitation faded. The mirage of global sponsorship for the implementation of Resolution 2254 has dissipated.

In the face of US-Western divisions, Ukraine and global economic crises emerge as a priority, leaving no room for significant initiatives in Syria.

The greatest ambition for Syria now lies in small steps here and there. Neighboring countries are looking for steps to stop the Syrian crisis from slipping past borders. They are taking measures to stop drug smuggling, terrorism, and the positioning of militias.

Major powers lowered the ceiling of their Syrian diplomacy, searching for small trade-offs instead.

What can Moscow and Damascus offer if Washington and Brussels agree to increase the share of funds allocated to early recovery projects? What price can be expected if Washington exempts some medical gear from its sanctions list or if a European capital increases the number of visas granted to Syrian diplomats? What guarantees does Damascus provide if some refugees return?

Over ten years, the discourse around enabling “regime change” in Syria shifted to “changing Damascus’ behavior” and “improving the Syrian government’s conduct.”

Talk of dismantling refugee camps shifted toward improving the quality of these camps for the displaced.

As for the reconstruction of Syria, ambitious plans for rebuilding the nation were reduced to repairing a school here and there, renovating rooms in hospitals, extending water networks, or installing faucets in tanks.

Furthermore, UN Security Council permanent members are talking about improving humanitarian aid access across the lines between the three micros-states present in Syria instead of talking about a united Syria and complete sovereignty over borders and airspace.

Military contacts between the major and regional actors are no longer aimed at discussing military withdrawals and exits from Syria. Rather, they are limited to “preventing clashes” between them and finding mechanisms for “coexistence” between rivals.

In the face of such a scene, a cholera outbreak is hardly reaching the bottom line of the Syrian tragedy.

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10 Years after Europe's Migration Crisis, the Fallout Reverberates in Greece and Beyond

File photo: Migrants of African origin trying to flee to Europe are crammed on board of a small boat, as Tunisian coast guards prepare to transfer them onto their vessel, at sea between Tunisia and Italy, on August 10, 2023. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)
File photo: Migrants of African origin trying to flee to Europe are crammed on board of a small boat, as Tunisian coast guards prepare to transfer them onto their vessel, at sea between Tunisia and Italy, on August 10, 2023. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)
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10 Years after Europe's Migration Crisis, the Fallout Reverberates in Greece and Beyond

File photo: Migrants of African origin trying to flee to Europe are crammed on board of a small boat, as Tunisian coast guards prepare to transfer them onto their vessel, at sea between Tunisia and Italy, on August 10, 2023. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)
File photo: Migrants of African origin trying to flee to Europe are crammed on board of a small boat, as Tunisian coast guards prepare to transfer them onto their vessel, at sea between Tunisia and Italy, on August 10, 2023. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)

Fleeing Iran with her husband and toddler, Amena Namjoyan reached a rocky beach of this eastern Greek island along with hundreds of thousands of others. For months, their arrival overwhelmed Lesbos. Boats fell apart, fishermen dove to save people from drowning, and local grandmothers bottle-fed newly arrived babies.

Namjoyan spent months in an overcrowded camp. She learned Greek. She struggled with illness and depression as her marriage collapsed. She tried to make a fresh start in Germany but eventually returned to Lesbos, the island that first embraced her. Today, she works at a restaurant, preparing Iranian dishes that locals devour, even if they struggle to pronounce the names. Her second child tells her, “‘I’m Greek.’”

“Greece is close to my culture, and I feel good here,” Namjoyan said. “I am proud of myself.”

In 2015, more than 1 million migrants and refugees arrived in Europe — the majority by sea, landing in Lesbos, where the north shore is just 10 kilometers (6 miles) from Türkiye. The influx of men, women and children fleeing war and poverty sparked a humanitarian crisis that shook the European Union to its core. A decade later, the fallout still reverberates on the island and beyond.

For many, Greece was a place of transit. They continued on to northern and western Europe. Many who applied for asylum were granted international protection; thousands became European citizens. Countless more were rejected, languishing for years in migrant camps or living in the streets. Some returned to their home countries. Others were kicked out of the European Union.

For Namjoyan, Lesbos is a welcoming place — many islanders share a refugee ancestry, and it helps that she speaks their language. But migration policy in Greece, like much of Europe, has shifted toward deterrence in the decade since the crisis. Far fewer people are arriving illegally. Officials and politicians have maintained that strong borders are needed. Critics say enforcement has gone too far and violates fundamental EU rights and values.

“Migration is now at the top of the political agenda, which it didn’t use to be before 2015,” said Camille Le Coz Director of the Migration Policy Institute Europe, noting changing EU alliances. “We are seeing a shift toward the right of the political spectrum.”

A humanitarian crisis turned into a political one

In 2015, boat after boat crowded with refugees crashed onto the doorstep of Elpiniki Laoumi, who runs a fish tavern across from a Lesbos beach. She fed them, gave them water, made meals for aid organizations.

“You would look at them and think of them as your own children," said Laoumi, whose tavern walls today are decorated with thank-you notes.

From 2015 to 2016, the peak of the migration crisis, more than 1 million people entered Europe through Greece alone. The immediate humanitarian crisis — to feed, shelter and care for so many people at once — grew into a long-term political one.

Greece was reeling from a crippling economic crisis. The influx added to anger against established political parties, fueling the rise of once-fringe populist forces.

EU nations fought over sharing responsibility for asylum seekers. The bloc’s unity cracked as some member states flatly refused to take migrants. Anti-migration voices calling for closed borders became louder.

Today, illegal migration is down across Europe While illegal migration to Greece has fluctuated, numbers are nowhere near 2015-16 figures, according to the International Organization for Migration. Smugglers adapted to heightened surveillance, shifting to more dangerous routes.

Overall, irregular EU border crossings decreased by nearly 40% last year and continue to fall, according to EU border and coast guard agency Frontex.

That hasn’t stopped politicians from focusing on — and sometimes fearmongering over — migration. This month, the Dutch government collapsed after a populist far-right lawmaker withdrew his party’s ministers over migration policy.

In Greece, the new far-right migration minister has threatened rejected asylum seekers with jail time.

A few miles from where Namjoyan now lives, in a forest of pine and olive trees, is a new EU-funded migrant center. It's one of the largest in Greece and can house up to 5,000 people.

Greek officials denied an Associated Press request to visit. Its opening is blocked, for now, by court challenges.

Some locals say the remote location seems deliberate — to keep migrants out of sight and out of mind.

“We don’t believe such massive facilities are needed here. And the location is the worst possible – deep inside a forest,” said Panagiotis Christofas, mayor of Lesbos’ capital, Mytilene. “We’re against it, and I believe that’s the prevailing sentiment in our community.”

A focus on border security

For most of Europe, migration efforts focus on border security and surveillance.

The European Commission this year greenlighted the creation of “return” hubs — a euphemism for deportation centers — for rejected asylum seekers. Italy has sent unwanted migrants to its centers in Albania, even as that faces legal challenges.

Governments have resumed building walls and boosting surveillance in ways unseen since the Cold War.

In 2015, Frontex was a small administrative office in Warsaw. Now, it's the EU's biggest agency, with 10,000 armed border guards, helicopters, drones and an annual budget of over 1 billion euros.

On other issues of migration — reception, asylum and integration, for example — EU nations are largely divided.

The legacy of Lesbos

Last year, EU nations approved a migration and asylum pact laying out common rules for the bloc's 27 countries on screening, asylum, detention and deportation of people trying to enter without authorization, among other things.

“The Lesbos crisis of 2015 was, in a way, the birth certificate of the European migration and asylum policy,” Margaritis Schinas, a former European Commission vice president and a chief pact architect, told AP.

He said that after years of fruitless negotiations, he's proud of the landmark compromise.

“We didn’t have a system,” Schinas said. “Europe’s gates had been crashed."

The deal, endorsed by the United Nations refugee agency, takes effect next year. Critics say it made concessions to hardliners. Human rights organizations say it will increase detention and erode the right to seek asylum.

Some organizations also criticize the “externalization” of EU border management — agreements with countries across the Mediterranean to aggressively patrol their coasts and hold migrants back in exchange for financial assistance.

The deals have expanded, from Türkiye to the Middle East and across Africa. Human rights groups say autocratic governments are pocketing billions and often subject the displaced to appalling conditions.

Lesbos still sees some migrants arrive Lesbos' 80,000 residents look back at the 2015 crisis with mixed feelings.

Fisherman Stratos Valamios saved some children. Others drowned just beyond his reach, their bodies still warm as he carried them to shore.

“What’s changed from back then to now, 10 years on? Nothing,” he said. “What I feel is anger — that such things can happen, that babies can drown.”

Those who died crossing to Lesbos are buried in two cemeteries, their graves marked as “unknown.”

Tiny shoes and empty juice boxes with faded Turkish labels can still be found on the northern coast. So can black doughnut-shaped inner tubes, given by smugglers as crude life preservers for children. At Moria, a refugee camp destroyed by fire in 2020, children’s drawings remain on gutted building walls.

Migrants still arrive, and sometimes die, on these shores. Lesbos began to adapt to a quieter, more measured flow of newcomers.

Efi Latsoudi, who runs a network helping migrants learn Greek and find jobs, hopes Lesbos’ tradition of helping outsiders in need will outlast national policies.

“The way things are developing, it’s not friendly for newcomers to integrate into Greek society,” Latsoudi said. "We need to do something. ... I believe there is hope.”