Ordinary Syrian people are going to extraordinary lengths, risking everything to protect their heritage, despite the horror that has engulfed their country. For them, it is not a question of people or stones. The story of the people is embedded in those stones, a crafted story stretching back millennia. Saving that story is saving Syria. Dr. Emma Cunliffe. Research Associate, Oxford University.

Syrian Voices

While in prison, Shahabi went from 273 pounds to just 97. Photo: Ibrahim Shahabi.

“For the first six months, the torture was every hour. It came in so many ways, without mercy or compassion. However, after tuberculosis, diarrhea, and other infectious diseases came into the barracks, the guards refrained from entering out of fear that they too would be infected. They would throw us our measly rations from the bottom of the cell door, and if someone died, they would throw us the key from the cell window so  that we could leave to bury the person in the yard.” Ibrahim Shahabi, a well-known bodybuilding champion from Aleppo.

The BBC profiles Aleppo’s underground doctors.

Aleppo Demonstration. 13 April 2016. Photo: AEJ.

Medical staff demonstrate after an airstrike killed Dr.Hassan, a respected cardiologist in Hama. His car appeared to have been deliberately targeted.

Water Purifying Tablet. Photo: Louay Otba.

Before the war, Aleppian entrepreneur Louay Otba invented and started producing a chlorine-free water disinfecting tablet. He will use his $5,000 prize from the Jusoor Entrepreneurship Competition to start the patent examination process.

“The Zoom Group.” Photo: Ahmad Saflo

Syrian Trainees Tell Stories in Their Own Words

“My writing of their stories did not matter. What mattered was that they tell their own stories, how and when they want to. What I had to do was try to give them back their voice. I could only provide them with the tools and skills needed, and then listen.” Hala Droubi, Karam Project Leadership Program.

In what the opposition labeled a “farce,” the “National Unity” list won 200 of 250 seats in parliamentary elections.  A prominent Aleppo lawyer toured election centers in western Aleppo. He reported that in many locations he was provided completed lists to vote with instead of a blank ballot. The UN does not recognize the elections.

Reconstruction

Idlib countryside. May 2015. Photo: Reuters/Khalil Ashawi.

Al Monitor explores Syria’s withering agricultural sector.

Reasons for Departure. Disaster and Emergency
Management Presidency of Turkey (AFAD) Survey Results.

“Peace and reconstruction are two sides of the same coin and a reconstruction strategy for Syria—the most war-ravaged country in the region—could help foster a sustainable peace.”  World Bank. Syria : reconstruction for peace.

“Peacebuilding is not an end point; it is a process that needs to be started very early on and supported at every stage.” Rebuilding Societies: Strategies for Resilience and Recovery in Times of Conflict

The State of the Conflict

Search for survivors after airstrike in rebel-held Aleppo. Photo: Reuters/A.Ismail.

Despite ceasefire fighting erupts in Aleppo.

The post The Aleppo Weekly, April 12-17 appeared first on The Aleppo Project.

When the drought in Syria started in 2008, the United Nations issued an appeal for funding for food aid for the many farmers whose crops had failed and animals had either been sold or died. In August the next year, with the drought getting worse and lasting longer than any other on record, another international appeal for help was announced. By the end of 2009, it had raised just 14 percent of what was needed.

Few western governments had good relations with Syria and it was seen as a low priority in humanitarian terms. The drought received little attention. The New York Times ran a single paragraph on it in 2008 and not another word for two years. Food aid is still driven by donor concerns and media attention, not by the needs of people going hungry.

By 2010 the drought was having a massive impact on Syrian society. Migration to cities accelerated, raising tensions across the country but particularly in Daraa, Homs, Aleppo and Damascus. The government did little to help. In part the dead hand of the moribund Syrian government was unable to move fast enough but also its economic reforms focused not on the rural poor but on the emerging crony capitalism that had taken off in the early part of the decade. Decades of political tensions, economic inequality and state brutality on a massive scale would prompt protests and then civil war.

Syria’s economy has been ruined by the war with some estimates suggesting it is half the size it was before the conflict. Looking forward, any reconstruction is going to have to deal with the issue of drought and the permanent water shortages that the country will face, in part because of the policies of the past six decades and in part because of climate change. The farmer sector will likely shrink and the country will no longer be self-sufficient in many of its foods. Rural populations will decline and when refugees and IDPs do go home, they will likely head to cities rather than villages. Water and climate change were factors in the start of the civil war. Addressing them will have to be part of an eventual solution.

See our briefing “Drought in Syria” here.

The post Drought in Syria appeared first on The Aleppo Project.