Syrian conflict - Alarm bells of history are ringing

The Government has pledged another €1m in aid to help support Syrian refugees. This will bring the total Irish aid package to €10.8m.

Some people may question this generosity in the light of our economic and financial problems but surely not when they examine what has been happening in Syria. In reality, our problems pale into insignificance in comparison with the plight of so many unfortunate people in that country.

More than 5,000 people a day are fleeing into neighbouring countries, which amounts to a nine-fold increase in the past 12 months. Over two million people have already fled Syria. Most of the countries into which they have escaped have serious social and economic problems of their own, before the influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees.

Lebanon has taken 716,000 Syrian refugees, while Jordan has 515,000, and there are 460,000 in Turkey, 168,000 in Iraq, and 110,000 in Egypt. The people in most of those countries have suffered serious reverses due to conflicts in recent years. In the circumstances, they may understand the plight of the refugees, but not be in a position to provide the necessary aid. Some of the countries could be brought to the brink of collapse, or further social upheaval. This is a humanitarian disaster that cries out for international assistance.

More than half — 52% — of the two million refugees that have already fled Syria, are under the age of 18. Hence the Government is particularly anxious to make the money available to help those children on humanitarian grounds. The money is for UN agencies to provide basic services in the refugee camps.

Those in the camps are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, because there are more than twice as many displaced people within the borders of Syria itself. Some 4.25m people have been forced to free from their homes during the two-and-a-half years of civil war. Thus over 6.25m people have been displaced, and that number is likely to grow if the conflict continues.

Many will remember the way Irish people were moved to help those in Ethiopia during the famine of the 1980s. What is happening to Syrians is the greatest humanitarian disaster of this century.

The French and US presidents are already calling for military intervention against the Syrian government in response to the chemical attack of Aug 21 in which 1,429 people — many of them children — were killed. Maybe military intervention is the only language that those responsible for the outrage will understand, but that could lead to a further expansion of the conflict.

Next year will be the centenary of the start of the First World War, which began a little over 99 years after the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. The Syrian crisis is set to top the agenda of the G20 summit, which begins tomorrow in St Petersburg, Russia.

The alarm bells of history should be ringing.