This is a guest post by Stephen Hoffman
People have strong opinions on how best to deal with Syria and rightly so. It is a conflict where there are no good guys and many shades of grey. Both Assad and his supporters like Hezbollah, and elements of the rebels including the Al Nusra Front and ISIS, are committing atrocities on a daily basis. Unfortunately for five years now it is Syrian civilians whether in blood, fleeing or persecution who are bearing the brunt of this.
Consequently, I think regardless of one’s opinions on how best to deal with the Syrian crisis most will agree there needs to be a humanitarian solution as the Syrian population is suffering terribly.
A campaign is being run by WithSyria; this is being publicised by Open Doors UK, a group speaking out against the persecution of Christians worldwide, no more so than in Syria. The video that links to the campaign’s petition really gets to me, because as a child I used to be scared of the dark, but thankfully in the UK there were always lights to turn on. With 83% of the lights already out in Syria and often with family lost who would turn on the light for them, for many Syrians, especially children, there is no light to turn to. These lights are important because whilst it may sound quite trite, it could play a role to deal with the unimaginable horrors they are going through, and surely that’s a good thing. This video by WithSyria explains it perfectly.
I urge you all to sign and share this important petition to call for more to be done in terms of humanitarian relief, which I link to here.
Stephen Hoffman
Parliament Street’s Director of Middle East Studies.
These are the author’s personal views, not those of Parliament Street
