Let us give humanity a chance in Syria

A UAE newspaper has said that right now, in the broken and deeply divided region immediately surrounding the tired and battered city of Damascus, a crisis of horrific proportions is unfolding in the ruins of Eastern Ghouta.

"In these past seven years, across the bloodied land of Syria, there have been many crises that have unfolded and have touched the hearts of everyone with any ounce of compassion and sympathy for the most desperate human condition. But until now, in the rubble where some 400,000 live, this crisis seems more grave, more egregious, more acerbic than others that have gone before," said Gulf News in an editorial today.

The paper continued, "The 400,000 who live in Eastern Ghouta are caught between the lines of the anti-regime rebel forces of Jaish Al Islam on one side, and the combined forces of the Syrian regime forces on the other that remain loyal to President Bashar Al Assad. It is a flattened hell, where government forces fire artillery and conduct air strikes, and where the Jaish Al Islam rebels respond by lobbing mortars and defending their redoubt as best as they can.

"War is hell. And this bloody, bitter and bruising war in Syria that has pitted brothers against each other, seen millions leave as part of a Syrian diaspora spread across the wider region and through Europe and beyond, and unleashed unfathomable atrocities known to man, is more somehow more hellish.

"And even though there are those who suffer injuries from the fighting, there are those too who suffer the worst ailments and illnesses that nature can inflict. There, in the hell that is Eastern Ghouta, there are children critically ill with cancer, others so debilitated from illnesses and injuries, that they need urgent and constant care.

"The plight of these 500 or so critically ill children and patients is now at the centre of a United Nations-led effort to organise an urgent medical evacuation. It has taken months for the UN personnel and those working with the International Red Cross and Red Crescent as well as the Syrian American Medical Society to organise paperwork and gain the necessary approvals of passage from the besieging forces and the regime of Al Assad. The rebel belligerents too have had to be convinced that the critically ill might leave.

"On Tuesday, the first of four patients left, with 25 more following, and the remaining 475 or so to secure safe passage in the coming days. For everyone’s sake, let us hope that a shred of humanity still remains there to allow this much-needed miracle to happen," concluded the Dubai-based daily