Crisis Breaks Syria

    Nothing has been stable in Syria for as long as we remember. When the world is fighting a battle against coronavirus, this middle-eastern country has more to think and worry about.

Syrian nationals have not lived in peace for the longest time now. After Bashar-al-Assad succeeded his father, there was a row of protests and incidents which were enough to show how Syria as a country is headed towards a full crisis. In 2011, when Arab Spring was an emerging phenomenon, Syrians also started to be part of it and demanded to choose their leaders. But unlike other countries, a series of protests did not work in the favour of the nation. Extreme measures were taken as resorts to silence the population demanding for the president’s resignation. There was a time when the US was in support of this resignation. The superpower wanted Assad to step down. And there is a time now when the United States has decided to get away with the idea of the regime leader stepping down and wants to see a ‘radical change’ in his behaviour.

“We are not demanding total victory. We are not saying that Assad has to go," Ambassador James Jeffrey said during a virtual conference hosted by the Washington, D.C.-based Middle East Institute think tank.

It has been nearly a decade of fight and now the US decides to head out. No matter what motive America had for supporting the call for the leader to step down, it had left some hope for the nationals but now the slightest chance of survival is lost.

Coronavirus adds to the already sinking situation of Syria. There have been 200 plus cases till now with seven deaths. Healthcare in Syria suffers as it is and the vulnerable population is prone to catching the virus as it rapidly finds its way through the country. It is not only about healthcare. It is also about the condition people have been living in. And to top it is the internal war that has been going on since ages. Many groups and countries - each with their own agendas - are involved, making the situation far more complex and prolonging the fighting.

Different cities are controlled by different groups and there are places where the government personnels cannot enter. These are the places where testing is not being done. Syria is not actively testing and that remains a problem after over five months since the spread of the virus began. It is a bigger battle for Syria than it is for most of the other countries. With their internal issues to solve—Shia-Sunni dispute, ongoing civil war situation, battle against the government—Syria has a long road to full recovery with COVID in the picture.