Photo: Syrian demonstrators at the Foreign Office, London, one year ago.
This time last year, the UK and other ISSG states undertook that they would begin aid airdrops to besieged communities in Syria if the Assad regime continued to block ground access past the 1st of June 2016. We are now one year on from that failed deadline.
The World Food Programme, which has by now flown 250 aid airdrops to regime-held Deir Ezzor, refused to fly aid to areas besieged by Assad unless the regime itself first gave permission.
The UK Government backed away from its commitment, the sieges continued, and the Assad regime and its allies forced the displacement of entire civilian communities, each of thousands and even tens of thousands of people.
THE COST OF FAILURE
In the past year, civilian communities have been forced from their homes in Daraya, Moadamiyeh, Wadi Barada, Al Waer, Madaya, Zabadani, and more, as well as from eastern Aleppo city.
This mass displacement makes the prospect of resolving the refugee crisis ever more distant. Forced displacement creates conditions for future conflict and empowers extremism.
The Global Report on Internal Displacement for 2016 calculates that a further 1.3 million people were displaced in Syria last year, bringing the total to 6.6 million people internally displaced in Syria.
Detailed costed proposals were put forward last year to use unmanned drones for airdrops. These proposals were drawn up by UK experts who had military experience, knowledge of the situation on the ground, and understood both the risks of action and the costs of inaction.
Despite this, Theresa May rejected calls for airdrops.
Over 146,000 people in the UK signed a petition calling for Parliament to debate airdrops. But Theresa May wouldn’t debate the issue.
Humanitarian drones are already delivering medical supplies in Rwanda. Drones for aid could save lives in Syria. The Ministry of Defence is investing £8 million on developing future warfighting drones. The UK must also be able to invest in humanitarian drones, for use in Syria and elsewhere.
WE NEED A FRESH START FOR SYRIA
This week the new French President Emmanuel Macron declared that for him humanitarian aid access is a red line.
We hope that President Macron’s remarks may now give an opportunity to reopen the call for airdrops here in the UK, with the possibility of France as a partner. Hundreds of thousands of Syrian civilians are still under siege and threatened with forced displacement. The Assad regime continues to block medical aid as well as food. There is still a chance to help, and still further risks in continuing failure to help.
• Please do your part to hold the Government to its promise.
• Speak up on the 1st anniversary of the broken aid deadline.
• Call for the UK along with France to commit to aid airdrops.
Syria groups in the UK have drawn up a list of eight pledges on Syria, including on airdrops.
Please use our simple online form to email your local candidates. Ask candidates to support these pledges.
For much more detail on sieges, see the series of reports produced by Siege Watch, a project by The Syria Institute and PAX, the Dutch aid NGO.