The fatigue over northeast Syria must end before it’s too late to stop the region’s deepening crisis

The landscape of northeast Syria stretches grimly into the horizon like a staging of F Scott Fitzgerald’s valley of the ashes.

Once Syria’s breadbasket, the region has been ravaged by multiple wars, an economic crisis and, more recently, drought and pollution. In places that have dissolved into a haze of dust and smog, which to poorly paraphrase Scott Fitzgerald, takes the form of buildings, villages and artisanal oil refineries, people are increasingly desperate.

For a while, the spotlight of the world shone fiercely on this comparatively small corner of the globe that is home to more than two million people. This reached a peak when it became the capital of the Islamic State’s brutal caliphate and so the battlefield of the international war to stamp out the terrorist group.

In 2019, this region, which is now almost entirely run by Kurdish self-administration, was once again thrust into headlines as it was ripped apart by fighting following Turkey’s invasion and subsequent occupation of parts of the border region.

Now that Isis has been largely geographically defeated, and there is a tense (but often violated) internationally-brokered ceasefire in place with Turkey, it feels somewhat forgotten despite the fact a humanitarian and environmental crisis there deepens every day.

There is dangerous fatigue that has to end before it’s too late.

Earlier this year the United Nations’s food and agriculture agency warned of a drought in the region caused by climate change but also conflict (and possibly political manipulation). This has, as predicted, played out with devastating consequences. Tributaries to the Euphrates have run dry, crops have failed and farmers I spoke to said they were afraid to plough and plant their seeds for next year as it would likely fail again.

Just last week Save The Children said the lives of millions were “hanging in the balance” because of low levels of water in key rivers, and damaged water infrastructure. They urged global leaders to tackle the climate crisis ahead of the gathering at the UN’s Cop26 summit which starts in Glasgow next week. They have also called for increased humanitarian funding.

Piling pressure on the area is the global pandemic and the lack of medical supplies. Doctors Without Borders warned last week that northeast Syria was breaking its own records in terms of daily Covid-19 cases. Vaccination rates are punishingly low.

One of the contributing factors is that in 2020 the only cross border UN aid delivery point to northeast Syria was closed. UN operations through al-Yarubiyah to Turkey were supposed to be replaced by deliveries from the government-held capital, but according to Amnesty, the volume of aid, especially medical aid, reaching the area declined sharply, due to bureaucratic impediments and restrictions on access.

This year the UN security council failed to vote on whether to reopen the crossing. And the miserable cycle continues.

The World Food Programme has even warned that all of these factors could see mass starvation, or mass exodus across northern Syria if something isn’t done.

“This is already happening. People have already had to leave the area,” said one shepherd I interviewed last week, sitting on the dry bed of a river that once serviced multiple villages in the area.

“But where can I go?” she asked, watching her goats graze on patches of thorns growing in the widening cracks of the parched land.

Her words were echoed by inhabitants in nearby villages. They all repeated the same problems: no water, no work, dwindling food supplies, destroyed homes. And nowhere to go.

There is still the ever-present spectre of war too. Tensions are flaring in the border regions with Turkey, that the Kurdish authorities accuse of continuing to drone strike and shell their towns.

Further south in Deir Ezzor – once held by Isis but now split between Kurdish and government control – residents told me of their concerns of a possible regime offensive supported by allied Iran-backed militias and, separately, attacks by Isis sleeper cells which are apparently regathering strength.

There are mounting concerns over the surge in violence in the sprawling camps housing internally displaced people and families (including Brits) associated with the Islamic State.

This is of course not unique to Kurdish-held northeast Syria. There are equally alarming droughts, famine and violence warnings in northwest Syria, the last opposition pocket in Syria as well as in regime-held areas where Syria’s economic crisis is biting.

The fatigue applies to the entire country.

This year is breaking many miserable humanitarian records – and all the indications show that next year could be worse. We must act now before it’s too late.