The war waged by the Syrian regime once morest the popular protests since 2011 led to massive demographic, political and military repercussions, as a result of which three main areas of sovereignty emerged. The first is controlled by the regime and its Russian and Iranian allies, and the second is dominated by the Syrian armed opposition and the Turkish army. Under the names of the “Kurdish Units” and “Syrian Democratic Forces” and others, the third region, with the sponsorship and military presence of the Americans.
Some of the cities, towns, and villages that the regime targeted during its subsequent military operations were subjected to sectarian and political surveys and cleansing. The regime also sponsored organized evacuations from many areas towards Idlib and opposition-held areas, bringing the number of internally displaced persons in Syria to nearly 6.5 million.
The number of residents of areas outside the control of the regime has increased to regarding 4.5 million, and Turkey has received regarding 3.7 million of them, while regarding 1.3 million Syrian refugees have gone to Jordan, 850 thousand to Lebanon, and 260 thousand to Iraq, and the number of refugees has reached There are approximately 6.6 million Syrians in the world, making Syria the source of the largest displacement crisis in the world.
The Syrians in the areas of opposition and the regime, as well as in their lands of refuge in Turkey, faced a new catastrophe represented by the terrible earthquake that struck the two countries at the same time, which raised the level of tragedies to a terrible degree, as the calamities met and mixed in their forms, between the political, the military and the humanitarian.
Suffering continued in the areas of the regime as a result of harnessing the state’s resources in the service of the war machine, the halt of industrial production, the drought that hit the region, the repercussions of the Corona virus, and Russia and Iran’s control of the bulk of sovereign investments such as gas, phosphates and electricity, in addition to the regime’s intransigence in accepting any solution. Politics, the continuation of US and European sanctions once morest him, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine added to raising the levels of international prices for grain and fuel.
The economic situation of the Syrians, in general, has declined to record levels of poverty, as Syria topped the list of the poorest countries in the world, with a rate of 82.2 percent, and 90 percent of the Syrians now live below the poverty line, and most of them live on foreign remittances from expatriates residing abroad.
The situation of Syrian refugees in Turkey is relatively better, compared to their counterparts in Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq, as they enjoy “temporary protection” that allows them to access basic services, including education and health care, but these “temporary” conditions have suffered from types of tension in which they played. The organized political campaigns played a role, and the matter was not limited to the “Victory Party” that is openly hostile to the Syrians, but rather the matter became a matter of bidding among all political parties. “Resettlement” to return one million Syrians.
As the death toll from the earthquake in Turkey continues to rise, many assume that a large number of them were Syrian refugees, and the earthquake represents a new major catastrophe that befalls them. Some of those who lost their homes and jobs to return to Syria.
For his part, the head of the Syrian regime, Bashar al-Assad, welcomed the disaster with apparent happiness. This new disaster led to the cessation of US and European sanctions for a period of six months, and he received personal contacts from many Arab leaders, and calls for normalization with him increased, and the arrival of aid trucks, which the Syrians noted, with sorrow, Selling it in the markets, or distributing it to the loyalists, and even some of those who demanded their share of the aid were arrested!
For the Syrians, it seemed as if the new catastrophe that had befallen their heads had been exploited, and that the rapid earthquake that pushed the earth with a force of 8 thousand kilometers per hour had become new merchandise for the continuous earthquake represented by the regime, which is still perching on their chests.
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