Israel Matzav

Guardian: #KiyiyaVuranInsanlik (humanity washed ashore) but no mention of its cause

Britain's Guardian published the photo above (and another even more shocking one) of a Turkish police officer carrying a dead Syrian boy whose body washed ashore as he attempted to flee the horrors of Syria's war (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).

“The situation on the islands is dramatic in terms of the sheer numbers flowing in, lack of shelter and ever worsening hygiene conditions,” Ketty Kehayioy, the UNHCR’s spokeswoman in Athens told the Guardian. “The absence of staff to conduct registrations is creating enormous bottlenecks on Lesvos and Kos which is further exacerbating substandard conditions, conditions themselves worsened by very limited facilities.”

Local NGO’s and volunteers, working around-the-clock to support insufficient state services now stretched to breaking point, described the situation as “utterly overwhelming.”

Wednesday’s dead were part of a grim toll of some 2,500 people who have died this summer attempting to cross the Mediterranean to Europe, according to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR.

Athens’ caretaker government, in power until elections are held on 20 September, announced emergency measures to facilitate the flow after meeting in urgent session under the prime minister, Vassiliki Thanou.

...

“The problem is very big,” said Mouzalas, a doctor who is also a member of the Doctors of the World aid organisation. “If the European Union doesn’t intervene quickly to absorb the populations … if the issue isn’t internationalised on a UN level, every so often we will be discussing how to avoid the crisis,” he told reporters, insisting that the thousands risking their lives to flee conflict were refugees. “There is no migration issue, remove that – it is a refugee issue,” he said.

But while the article does mention Islamic State (ISIS), it fails to mention the fact that the other side of Syria's civil war - Bashar al-Assad - has shown equal contempt for the lives of Syria's citizens, including its children. And the article also fails to mention that the release of more than $150 billion in frozen Iranian assets as a result of the United States and Europe selling out to a nuclear armed Iran means that Assad will have even more money and weapons with which to make war on Syria's civilian population - alongside ISIS.

Yes, there is a humanitarian crisis here. And not only is Europe not solving that crisis (and it may not be able to solve it just by taking refugees in), it is making the crisis worse by financing it.

Morons.

Labels: Bashar al-Assad, European Union, Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, ISIS, Islamic State, Nusra Front, Syrian refugees, Syrian uprising

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:34 AM