Withheld, retained, misappropriated: Humanitarian aid in Syria
Channel: Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung
Date: 2023-01-16

Panel discussion

Since the beginning of the uprising in Syria, one of the Syrian regime’s most successful war strategies has been to obstruct humanitarian supplies as a weapon against the population. Through years of blockades, the regime and its allies starved entire regions between 2012 and 2018. At the same time, they dropped bombs on the people living in these regions, systematically withheld medical care and did their utmost to obstruct international aid. This strategy has forced massive demographic changes in and around Damascus, but also in Homs and Aleppo.

The fact that the UN Security Council has tied its own hands in an effort to comply with international law plays an important role in this context: it has made the provision of cross-border humanitarian aid, which must be based on needs regardless of the political leanings of the recipients, dependent on the consent of all members of the Security Council, including that of one of the warring parties - Russia. The last border crossing open for UN aid to Idlib is due to have its mandate extended in mid-January 2023. 

Humanitarian aid in Syria is thus not apolitical and neutral, but highly politicised. And, what’s worse: according to recent reports, much of the humanitarian aid has flowed indirectly or even directly to the regime, allegedly contributing to further human rights violations and exacerbating the plight of others by being withheld.

How do manipulation and misappropriation of humanitarian aid function in the context of Syria? In view of this, what mechanisms in international governance structures are indispensable to prevent such practices that could potentially exacerbate the conflict? What political action is required by Germany and the EU as a result?

With:
- Natasha Hall, Senior Fellow, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
- Ibrahim Olabi, lawyer at Guernica 37; founder of the Syrian Legal Development Program
- Dr Carsten Wieland, Advisor to the Greens parliamentary group on the Middle East
- Susanne Fries-Gaier, AA, Representative for Humanitarian Aid

Chaired by: Dr Bente Scheller, Head of Middle East and North Africa Division, Heinrich Böll Foundation

Language: English, simultaneous interpretation into German