Humanitarian Intervention in Syria

Running head: HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION
Response to the crisis in Syria (2011-2018)
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1HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION
Response to the crisis in Syria (2011-2018)
Syria has been suffering from a severe civil war since 2011. The peaceful protest that
started against the government of Syria in March 2011 became an enormous full-blown civil war
by 2012 where the military and armed forces and the international powerhouses got involved.
The protestors wanted the president Bashar al-Assad to undertake democratic reforms, but the
government responded with extreme violence. As a result, some protestors teamed up with the
military defectors for forming the Free Syrian Army with an overview to overthrow the
government, which triggered the violent civil war since 20121. The war has killed more than
millions of people and displaced billions. As per the report by the United Nations, around 6.1
million people were displaced within Syria and around 5.6 million went to other countries as
refugees2. Currently, two major international powers have been involved in the Syrian civil war,
Russia and the United States. The rebel group calls itself Islamic State (IS). There are various
dimensions of the civil war in Syria. The major conflict was between the two major groups of the
Islam religion, namely Shia Islam and Sunni Islam and in the Syrian war, Saudi Arabia and Iran
got involved as Saudi protects the Sunni muslims and Iran protects the Shia muslims. The
conflict began to address the issues like high unemployment, corruptions and lack of political
freedom under President Assad3. Along with that, there is absence of accountable government
which created the scope for the international powerhouses to get involved. The protests that only
wanted democracy and greater freedom, soon turned into a huge protest asking the President to
1 Sharara, S.L. and Kanj, S.S., 2014. War and infectious diseases: challenges of the Syrian civil war. PLoS
pathogens, 10(11), p.e1004438.
2 Bbc.co.uk, "What's happening in Syria?.". in Bbc.co.uk, , 2018, <https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/16979186>
[accessed 22 April 2019].
3 Laub, Z, & J Masters, "Syria’s Crisis and the Global Response.". in Council on Foreign Relations, , 2013,
<https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/syrias-crisis-and-global-response> [accessed 22 April 2019].

2HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION
resign due to the irresponsible and violent behavior displayed by the government military force.
The Islamic State (IS) is a militant group, and it joined to rebel group to get access to the
weapons to pursue their own violent ideas. It captured Raqqa in early 2014 and went on to
capture other major cities to continue the fight against the government and that increased the
severity of the civil war in Syria4. Thus, Syria is not only in fight with the rebels but both these
groups are fighting with the IS also.
The Syrian government got the support from Russia and Iran, while the USA, Saudi
Arabia and Turkey back the rebels. Other international powers such as France, the UK, and other
western countries are providing different levels of support to the moderate levels. The crisis that
has been going on since 2011 has resulted in severe tragedies for the Syrian people, such as,
millions of people have been killed, brutalized, displaced, injured, bereaved, tortured, or
impoverished and it has brought the issue of lack of protection of the innocent civilians in the
front, which opened the path for humanitarian invention by the other political powers and
voluntary welfare organizations5. The involvement of IS has made the situation much worse and
in September 2014, the USA intervened in Syria to attack the IS through air strikes.
The need for intervention in Syria was highlighted once the UN Under-Secretary General
for Humanitarian Affairs reported the consequences of the crisis in Syria. As of December 2013,
within Syria, 9.3 million people needed humanitarian assistance. Among them 6.5 million fled
their homes, the number of Syrian refugees approaching neighboring countries was almost 2.3
million and increasing, unemployment reached to 3 million and 3 million children had to leave
4 Holland-McCowan, J., 2017. War of Shadows: How Turkey's Conflict with the PKK Shapes the Syrian Civil War
and Iraqi Kurdistan. International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence.
5 Averre, D. and Davies, L., 2015. Russia, humanitarian intervention and the Responsibility to Protect: the case of
Syria. International Affairs, 91(4), pp.813-834.