Publication
21 October 2014
Syria: Forsaken IDPs adrift inside a fragmenting state
In 2013, 9,500 Syrians were displaced per day on average. By July 2014, the total number of internally displaced people (IDPs) reached 6.4 million, a third of the entire population of the country. An additional three million Syrians have sought refuge in neighbouring countries. A stable middle-income country that hosted refugees from all over the region and beyond just four years ago, Syria is now experiencing a displacement and protection crisis of a magnitude the world has not seen for many years.
The Syrian authorities have not only failed to protect civilians from or during displacement, but their deliberate targeting of non-combatants has also been the main cause for their massive displacement. Sieges, checkpoints and international border restrictions have prevented civilians in need of protection from fleeing to safer areas, either within or outside the country. For their part, several fundamentalist Islamist groups have also forced civilians to flee and carried out human rights violations that have led to their displacement.
Aid agencies have done their best to respond to the overwhelming humanitarian impact of the conflict, both in the country and from neighbouring states. However, the politicisation of aid by international and regional actors has prevented them from fulfilling their basic functions. It has prevented them from being able to respond to the needs of all IDPs, irrespective of their locations or political allegiances, in conformity with the humanitarian principle of the neutrality of humanitarian assistance. The Syrian authorities have severely restricted the work of international humanitarian agencies and, except for a few cases, have prevented them from delivering aid to rebel-held areas across front lines and international borders.
Access restrictions and cumbersome procedures imposed by the Syrian authorities on humanitarian agencies have hampered their monitoring of IDPs figures and movements. This has led to inconsistent, unreliable and patchy data and contributed to an underestimation of IDPs’ needs. Tensions between inter-national agencies over their relations with the Syrian authorities, perceived by NGOs active in rebel-held areas as compromising, have created mistrust among the different actors. This has, in turn exacerbated coordination constraints. All these factors, compounded by severe funding shortcomings, have gravely hampered the humanitarian response.