InvestigationAccess bitterly negotiated, conditions imposed, embezzlement… In this country in tatters after ten years of war, each of the players controlling a portion of the territory is trying to use the manna of donors for their own benefit. Who cannot stop their payments in the face of growing food insecurity.
“It’s terrible when you arrive in Aleppo: all these ruins…” This Syrian, refugee in Lebanon, had trouble recognizing the city when she went to visit her parents, after long years of separation. They never left the eastern districts of the great city in northern Syria, controlled by the opposition to Bashar Al-Assad from the summer of 2012, before being pounded by the Russian air force and taken over by the regime, in December 2016. During this recent stay, the young woman “didn’t dare[t] not go out after dark. There is still no electricity, and we no longer know who is who! » So many residents of Aleppo have left. For those who stayed ” life is hard. Even bread doesn’t look like much anymore: it crumbles because it’s made from bad flour. Everything is expensive”. Her husband did not accompany her for fear of being arrested. He knows he is wanted by the intelligence services since the army demanded its mobilization. Even without this, the couple would not imagine, for the moment, returning to Syria permanently, despite the love they have for their country.
With the exception of Idlib, in the northwest of the country, the fighting no longer punctuates the daily life of the majority of the inhabitants. But the bombings have given way to another scourge, a deep economic crisis hitting a population already exhausted by more than ten years of war. Today, “ more than 90% of Syrians live in povertyalerted the United Nations. Gender-based violence and risks to children are on the rise. Potential exposure to explosive devices remains high. Food insecurity has reached new records: 12 million people suffer from hunger every day. Nearly one in two Syrian children is out of school and vulnerable to labour, early and forced marriage, trafficking and recruitment by armed actors. »
This economic situation, added to the political deadlock, has made the population more dependent than ever on humanitarian aid. And that, wherever she is on this territory now divided into three zones of influence: governmental Syria (the main part of the country, comprising the largest number of inhabitants), the North-West, dominated by the Islamists , and the North-East, under Kurdish administration. It is a latent state, halfway between war and peace. The regime, sure of its victory, obtained at the price of the destruction of part of the country, refuses any political concession.
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