Press release
Syrian Opposition Coalition
Department of Media and Communications
April 02, 2021
For the past ten years, the Syrian people have been suffering a hellish war being waged by the Assad regime and its allies against them in response to their demands for freedom and dignity. The Assad regime has used every means and weapon at its disposal to suppress the revolution, including chemical weapons, besiegement and starvation.
Civilians in the regime-held areas are today living in disastrous economic conditions that have been unprecedented in Syria’s modern history. As the value of the currency continues to spiral down, prices of basic commodities are soaring amid severe shortages of basic necessities. Manifestations of abject poverty, hunger, disease and the near total lack of basic services are a dangerous indicator of an imminent total collapse as a result of the Assad regime’s survival and its depletion of the country’s resources in its war against the Syrian people and the recruitment of foreign militias and invaders.
Hunger has been a major weapon of the Assad regime’s policy of starving and impoverishing Syrians over the past several years. The regime applied this policy in numerous occasions, most notably in Madaya, eastern Ghouta, Aleppo, Homs, Dara’a, and Deir Ezzor. Today it is trying to starve civilians in the areas under its control with the aim of exploiting their suffering to put pressure on the international community to accept its rehabilitation.
There will be no solution to the disasters that are afflicting the Syrian people except through the departure of this criminal regime; stopping its brutal war against Syria and its people; and bringing about a political transition. Any discourse seeking to support the Assad regime under the pretext of ending this suffering is nothing but political hypocrisy that seeks to reward the criminal and help him achieve his goals instead of seeking to hold him accountable and saving civilians from his crimes.
The United Nations is required to impose effective mechanisms that guarantee the delivery of relief aid to all Syrians in need without going through the Assad regime’s labyrinth of corruption and theft.
It is also imperative that the international community assume its responsibilities with regard to the Assad regime’s crimes and saving Syrian civilians. An effective pressuring mechanism also needs to be established within a clear timeframe that guarantees an end to crimes and starvation and expedites a political transition in accordance with the Geneva Communique of 2012 and UN Security Council Resolution 2254.
