THE EUROPEAN – SECURITY AND DEFENCE UNION
The displaced – a continuous failing of the global community A call to action for political decision makers
photo: A. Quaden
by Andrea Quaden, humanitarian aid worker, Syria
I
have been working to the best of my abilities with and for the displaced children, women and men of this world for more than a decade now. From Germany to Turkey and Syria to Iraq, the Mediterranean Sea and back to Syria. There is one ultimate truth in the suffering of people which the “coat” of humanitarian aid cannot cover up: committed and collective political willingness is missing to end the suffering of human beings, to save people’s lives, to ensure dignity, humanity, and freedom to each and every one of us, to establish peace and stability and to get societies back on their feet after a man-made or natural catastrophe. Political willingness – nothing more, nothing less.
No equal access to a peaceful and dignified life The jurisdiction to uphold human rights, to mitigate and end conflicts and wars, to support the most vulnerable, to offer refuge and grant asylum, to ensure all human beings – regardless of their origin, gender/sex, age or faith – have equal access to a peaceful, dignified, safe and sustainable life has existed since even before the horrors of the two world wars, but even more so in their aftermath. Nevertheless, to name a few examples: to date, 79.5 million people have been forced to flee their homes, a trend which is
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rising; millions of them live in camps like settlements or other forms of inhuman shelter conditions around the world, including in Europe; by May 2021 the limited data we have revealed that 1,346 people have lost their lives at sea across the world, 743 of them have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea under the watch of the EU and its member states; 690 million people still go hungry every day.
Between hope and deception I started my “career” as a humanitarian aid worker in the context of the Syrian war in 2014. As “expats” unable to access large parts of the country due to the unfolding war and extreme violence, we could only operate across the Turkish border under the UN Security Council Resolution 2165, witnessing the neighbouring country on the other side of the fence (by now a fully fledged, patrolled and armed concrete wall) falling apart and civilians fleeing for their lives. Seven years later, the context has changed. Frontlines and areas of control in Syria have shifted hundreds of times and to date, we witness a stalemate, a fragile status quo. However, after ten years of war and an additional financial crisis in Lebanon, the Syrian economy is shattered and in freefall. People cannot make ends meet anymore, slipping one by one under the poverty line with all the horrid consequences, such as child labour, child marriage, high school dropout rates, families skipping meals, a rise in
