Blog #3 Human Rights Abroad

Joseph Anicich
3 min readApr 6, 2021

A human rights issue outside of the United States that is occurring which I wanted to cover in my blog today is the Syrian refugee crisis. The Syrian civil war officially began on March 15, 2011, and as a result, started the world’s largest refugee and displacement crisis since the turn of the 21st century. Over 11.1 million Syrian people are in need of humanitarian aid, half of them being under the age of 18, and are attempting to flee a war torn country. Hospitals, schools, sanitation systems, utilities, and homes have now been reduced to rubble, causing economic despair and families struggling to obtain the basic food, water, and household items needed to survive. In addition, the global Covid-19 pandemic has left even more suffering throughout the country, with many families not being able to access quality masks, hand soap, shelter and healthcare to stay safe and healthy during this time. In an attempt to do the most they can to help during these poor people’s time in need, Unicef has created a fund to help with every possible need a struggling family in Syria may have. Unicef has created programs for acute malnutrition, safe and appropriate infant feeding practices, vaccinating children against polio and measles, ensuring access to safe drinking water, distributing hygiene kits, providing free remote learning, and more. I couldn’t relate any less to the people who are suffering through this crisis, as can’t many of the rest of the world, and I am glad they can not. Syrian refugees right now are living a horrible life, an inhuman life, where they can’t even go to the grocery store to get food and water without worries of being bombes, a life where waking up tomorrow is not promised, a life where being sick with a cold might be the end of your life because there is no healthcare system to provide help. And the worst part about this issue is that the civil war tearing the country apart has no end in sight, as the government doesn’t have the funds or military members/equipment to regain control of Syria from terrorist groups who are holding the country captive. The only response the military has is to bomb the country as a whole in order to kill the terrorists, which in turn is destroying the communities, the homes, the schools, the hospitals, the lives of their citizens’. No compromise seems to be in the works either, causing many citizens to take dangerous journeys to immigrate to other countries, with no money, food, water, motor vehicle to travel far. Thus, social media accounts, such as Unicef’s, have started posting links to their fund in their profile’s bio, and encouraging people to donate any money they can, and to repost their post to get more people aware of the crisis that is going on in Syria. In turn, I hope that more people can provide any help they can to help the poor citizens of Syria leave their country, and hopefully one day find a home to grow up in and raise their families without worrying about a bombing, or without having food insecurity, access to clean water and a good education, an opportunity to make money, and ultimately live a happy and healthy life.

--

--