‘Syrians are still human beings, they deserve to survive and live normal, respectful lives’

Kasem Hijazy has a row of photographs hanging on the wall of his office of colleagues who have died in Syria’s war. Whenever he feels exhausted or fears he could lose faith in the projects he is leading, he turns to that wall for support.

“I look at them and say, ‘Okay, I should keep doing this work.’ Sometimes I think I should have a normal life and go somewhere else to live peacefully. But then I realise that would be disloyal. I have lost colleagues, family members, lots of friends. It’s so painful, really.”

Hijazy is head of operations for Goal in Syria and has been working for the charity since 2012. Before the conflict broke out he studied English literature and taught English in primary and secondary schools in Aleppo. Before the war he was planning to live abroad and had applied for a teaching position in Kuwait. "I had to cancel it all when the revolution started. I felt my family would need me and that my country would need me."

Seventh anniversary

This week marks the seventh anniversary of the Syrian civil war which has left an estimated half a million people dead. The conflict began in 2011 after the Syrian government implemented a violent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations inspired by the Arab Spring. Since then, some 6.1 million people have been driven from their homes inside Syria, while another 5.6 million refugees have left the country, according to the UN Refugee Agency.

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The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitor, says about 511,000 people have been killed since the war began. Nearly 70 per cent of Syrians still in the country are living in extreme poverty while in 2017, 910 children were killed in the conflict, up 50 per cent on the previous year.

Hijazy works in Idlib province in northwestern Syria, one of the last opposition strongholds in the conflict and the target of heavy bombardments and air strikes in recent weeks. He joined Goal as a translator six years ago and now leads a team of more than 400 Syrian staff. He is one of just six Goal staff members who have permission to cross the border between Turkey and Syria.

Optimism

Hijazy struggles to remember a time when he did not constantly fear for the safety of his loved ones. “Every Syrian has to check if their relatives are okay day by day. This is now a part of our daily activity, we always need to worry about someone.”

Speaking in Dublin this week, Hijazy said he felt a responsibility to bring a degree of optimism back to his co-workers in Idlib when he returns from trips abroad. “I have to give them an injection of courage and support. Don’t worry, things will be solved. Sometimes I ask myself, am I just telling lies to give them hope?”

Hijazy says heavy rain and strong winds in Idlib during the winter months have destroyed the tents where thousands of people are living in refugee camps. He is also worried about the influx of people arriving in the province from other parts of the country. An estimated 2.5 million people are living Idlib, including more than a million who arrived in recent years.

Aid delivery delays

In 2016, a US investigation into alleged bribery and bid-rigging involving suppliers on the Turkey-Syria border saw the Department of Foreign Affairs hold back almost €3 million in humanitarian funding for Goal. While the charity maintains the Syria programme – the largest aid programme in Goal’s history – was not affected by the withholding of funds, Hijazy says there were delays of up to two months in aid deliveries. In late 2016, the Government released the funding back to the aid agency.

In recent weeks, international media attention has focused on the besieged Syrian enclave of eastern Ghouta where an estimated 400,000 civilians are trapped under bombardment and deprived of food and medicine. More than 1,100 civilians have died since the Syrian government began its offensive on the rebel-held territory near Damascus in February.

‘No men left’

“Ghouta has been under siege since 2013,” says Hijazy, “The kids there can’t differentiate between different types of fruits. They can differentiate between the sound of bombs and even Kalashnikovs but not food. There are no men left there – either they are fighters or were killed, imprisoned or injured. The women have to do everything.”

Hijazy says the Syrian war will only end through strong political will and the implementation of a long-term ceasefire. “It will take time and require lots of honest people to be in the same room who care about Syria and Syrians more than the agendas of other countries.

“People should remember that in the second World War lots of people came to Syria and we hosted them and helped them. But now the number one problem for most countries is Syrian refugees and how they can prevent them from arriving in their countries. Syrians are still human beings, not numbers, and they deserve to survive and live normal, respectful lives.”