“We are witnessing a paradigm change, an unchecked slide into an era in which the scale of global forced displacement as well as the response required is now clearly dwarfing anything seen before.”
– Antonio Guterres, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
The global political upheaval caused by the Syrian refugee crisis could potentially mask a critical issue that has all the signs of a catastrophic public health disaster — the health of the vulnerable migrants fleeing an ongoing long-standing war that has been incredibly devastating to civilians. The conflict, which started in 2011, has resulted in more than 4.2 million Syrians escaping and relocating to neighboring countries like Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Egypt, and Jordan as well as Europe and Northern Africa. Described as the largest humanitarian crisis of the 21st century by the United Nations, the numbers are mind-boggling — more than 12 million are in dire need of help, including almost 6 million children, and of the registered refugees in the above countries, almost 75 percent are women and children, the cohorts most vulnerable to disease and death. The death toll has reached almost 200,000.
While we continue to bicker about religion and witness an acerbic political rhetoric blindfolded by rage at terrorism, humanity and compassion have taken a backseat and rebuilding lives of the most profoundly helpless victims of war remains overshadowed by a frenzy of global power struggles.
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