“Kitna wicket gya,” asked the Bihar State health minister Mangal Pandey in between the meeting with Union health minister and Minister of state at the Sri Krishna Medical College and Hospital (SKMCH). SKMCH is the same hospital where 101 kids have died suffering from AES in the last 15days.
Mr. Panday, who visited the hospital after 13 days of the tragedy, was interested in a cricket match. I wonder how someone did not reply to him, “Sir, 92, that is the number of kids died in the same building you are asking the wickets.” Minister Panday later tweeted about India’s victory from his official Twitter account.
On the same day during a Press Conference with Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan, newly appointed Minister of State for Health and family welfare Ashwani Kumar Choubey was caught sleeping. Earlier we used the term the government is sleeping while mothers are crying for their dead kids, thanks to Mr. Choubey, we literally, saw how government sleeps!
Mr. Choubey was also spotted celebrating Bharatiya Janata Party’s victory in Bhagalpur a day before. He later told reporters, “I was not sleeping; I was pensive.”
It has been 17 days of the epidemic, and none of the opposition leaders in Bihar was heard talking about the tragedy, or even asked questions from the governing party. Well, that is too much to expect I guess, they did not even visit the hospital once not for their photo opportunity. Is the opposition dead in Bihar? If yes, why are they still living in the bungalows paid by our taxes? Move in the car that we pump the fuel for?
Remember, how Bihar had hot seats in the recent election from Begusari to Patna Saheb. Look the state now.
The Bihar state government, who was sleeping for good 14 days, woke up on Saturday with a visit of Mr. Pandey. This was when the death toll had reached 70. A day after Union Health Minister reached the SKMCH with the Minister of State for health and family welfare. If this is what you call efficiency, Bihar will develop in another century!
Thanks to local media, we got to know what is happening in the state else the national media had cricket to cover. While we are criticizing the media, it is essential to thank TV9 Bharatvarsh’s Ajit Anjum who went to ground zero and made the nation see how kids die in the scarcity of doctors and resources in north Bihar’s most significant state hospital.
What we ask today is why should not on moral grounds, the Minister of State Mr. Choubey for sleeping, and State Health Minister Mr. Pandey should offer their organization as soon as the crisis is over. I respect his love for the game, and the state is pretty sure he will go great as state sports minister, but we need someone who can save our children as the health minister.
We also ask, why shouldn’t the opposition parties and their leaders should leave politics as their crippleness in voicing the issues of people are causing much damage to the state.
As per the reports on Monday AES has claimed 101 lives in Muzaffarpur.
The moment we stop fighting “for” each other, that’s the moment we lose our humanity.
Over 500 people dead in the last one week including 121 children. These innocent civilians fell victim to the mass murder due to bombardment by the government forces of their country. Yes they were the citizens of Syria, where the government, in its quest to crush the opposing rebel forces has forgotten to differentiate between civilians and the rebel outfits, sparing not even the innocents in the bloodbath that has become Syria’s identity. Over 393,000 people remain trapped in the area of Eastern Ghouta which Syrian forces backed by Russia have been pounding since last Sunday. The humanitarian crisis has been largely due to the government of Syria and its allies Iran and Russia. UN Security Council has been debating and is struggling on a ceasefire resolution, but Russia is not ready to back down without dealing a final blow to the rebel forces in Damascus and has been accused by western powers of stalling time. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has described the conditions in Syria as hell on earth. There couldn’t have been a more apt term to describe the country that’s almost on the verge of its destruction.
A Syrian refugee child cries at the Al Zaatri refugee camp in the Jordanian city of Mafraq, near the border with Syria.
The Syrian Civil war has stretched on for more than six years now and the end seems to be nowhere in sight. Over 400,000 people have lost their lives and more than 5 million people have fled the country. But this article is not to discuss the background and the causes of the war; this is to discuss the world’s appalling silence and ignorance over the plight of Syria. People are so busy living in their comfortable delusional worlds where Syria is a far off mythical land where no matter how many more people keep dying every day, it’s going to have no effect on rest of the world. You probably think that what has happened to that country could never happen to your’ s or to put it more bluntly, you have no business paying attention to the fate of Syria. To you, Syria exists in a different universe, unworthy of your empathy or even your attention. The dying children, the pain of those innocent people means nothing to you, the violence doesn’t bother you, because their existence never did in the first place. But you see, the Syrians too probably never thought that this could happen to them, that the bloodshed would go long for this long.
You might think, why should you bother about it and anyway it is an international issue, so what difference would it make even if chose to bother? Let us discuss the first why. Firstly, we need to bother about Syria because of the most simple reason that we are human. If the sight of little Aylan Kurdi washed up on the shores of the sea didn’t shake your senses, if the sight of countless starving homeless scared Syrian children doesn’t wake you up from your slumber or if the thought of countless innocent people being killed like insects on daily basis doesn’t make a difference to you, then I don’t know what will. Why is it that a mass shooting in Chicago triggers protests throughout the world but no one even bats an eyelid over the news of thousands of lives being torn apart in Syria every single day. Have we stooped so low that even our empathy has become biased upon what sells and what not? Why is it that some lives get the sympathy of the entire world and the value of some lives is reduced to being cheaper than oil? Will you only take notice when Facebook makes it the new cool to upload your DP with the Syrian flag? Just remember, when the world let Iraq and Afghanistan bleed, Taliban happened. And now while the world is busy ignoring Syria, ISIS is happening. Proxy battlegrounds like the war torn Syria are the breeding ground of terrorists. Some people believe that Syria deserves it because the country gave birth to the deadliest terrorist outfits of recent times, ISIS. But have you spared a thought as to why people become terrorists? Because they were neglected, because nobody paid attention to them when they being exploited. When atrocities were being committed against them, nobody saved them. And that is what led them to get misguided and blindfolded in the farce of religious bigotry . Because these people see every day, their country being reduced to ashes, their culture, their heritage being brought to ruins, their children killed, their houses burnt, their women raped and still not a ray of justice. Their fault? Being born in a country caught in the vicious web of political unrest and violence. The cycle is same everywhere. Exploitation of the weak and poor for the gains of the rich and powerful. The weak take up arms first in defence, and then get misguided and forget to differentiate between their exploiters and the innocent. That is how every terrorist outfit comes into existence, by luring the downtrodden, by misguiding the people who have been wrong and denied justice into false promises of religious salvation. The developed nations leave no opportunity of exploiting and taking advantage of a weaker country with abundant resources.
Now the second question, what you as an individual can do? You could just start by being aware , raise your voice against the heinous cruelty and the humanitarian crisis in Syria. Talk, write, share, create and spread awareness. Opinions are like waves. They travel far and wide. A single person’s opinion might not matter to the world, but a country’s opinion sure does. And when the country is a contender for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council, its opinion matters. Being a citizen of that country, you have the power to shape up the mentality of an entire nation, in your own little capacity.
The killing in Syria can be stopped. It is going on because what was an internal political matter of Syria has been blown into a proxy war among the world powers like USA and Russia and regional ones like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey. These foreign interventions played the major role in promoting sectarianism between the Shia and Sunni communities of a predominantly secular Syria. The conflicts of the communities gave rise to the bloodiest episodes of violence of recent times. The world powers have long ago stopped thinking about the lives of Syrians and are now using the chaos for the fulfilment of their own interests in Syria. Why did these external powers intervene in the internal affairs of Syria? A well speculated theory suggests that all of this is for the control over the Natural Gas pipeline connecting the Middle East to Europe which is supposed to go through Syria. Russia, which uses its position as the supplier of a quarter of Europe’s natural gas as a political leverage , had its market in trouble due to this pipeline which would link Europe to the Middle East directly and straightaway reduce Europe’s dependency on Russia. Turkey came into the picture as it stands at crossroads of Asia & Europe and is an aspiring member of the European Union. Turkey is considered as the best option for facilitating the movement of gas supplies from Middle East to Europe. US and Turkey want to ensure free export of gas through suppliers in Middle East which is obviously not in the best interests of Iran and Saudi Arabia. Also, Iran’s interest lies in Shia bolstering and its involvement in the Lebanese Islamist movement Hezbollah. So, all these powers are busy fuelling the war further for protection of their respective interests. They supply subsidized weapons, military advisors and monetary funding to the Syrian government forces and the rebel forces depending on who they support. If all of them stop funding the war, it would have stopped probably a long time ago.
Have you ever thought, a country that’s in flames, where does it get the money and resources to keep the war going on? The war is sponsored . Wars are always sponsored. Sponsored by the countries that claim to be the Messiah but in reality are the biggest sponsors of the genocide. It was Iraq in 2003 over oil. And now its Syria for natural gas. Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria. Which country is next?
The world needs to wake up to the pain of Syria. The UN needs to be stern and take measures for a political solution to the conflict. The refugees need to be rehabilitated and the people trapped and unable to flee Syria need to be rescued. In a way, all the countries that have cashed on the war by fuelling it owe the Syrians a safe future. And no, you can’t just blow up a country and ban its citizens from entering your own when they knock at your doorstep for help. If you are so concerned about protecting your country from terrorists, stop creating them. It is that simple.
So people, sit right back up and take notice of what’s happening around the world. Syria maybe far away, Myanmar is not. Don’t even be surprised if another ISIS rises out of the Rohingyas .The world has a lot to learn from the story of the destruction of Syria. How a protest against government oppression turned into widespread violence and how wrong tactics of brute force on the part of the Syrian government lead to the civil war. And the biggest lesson, that if a government invites foreign powers to intervene in its internal matters, they will plunder the country. If you let them in on the internal disputes of your country, if you stand divided as a nation on the basis of caste and religion, just remember , there are powers that are lurking just around the corner to cash in on the unrest.
The entire nation is lost in festive reveries. It’s a dark picture of morbid contrasts that people in one country are painting their lives in pretty colours and in another part of the world, people haven’t been able to celebrate a festival in years. How will they? When the cacophony of violence around them has taken over their hope for a normal life? Those people watch their family and friends die every day, their houses up in flames, their lives in shambles. To them, a day of relative peace and survival is no less than a festival. Yes, I am talking about Syria, the country which has not seen normalcy since years.
Syria began its descent into civil war in early 2011, when government security forces shot and killed protesters. But if President Bashar al-Assad thought a show of force would end the protests, he was wrong.
Here is a timeline of key events in the Syrian civil war.
The Beginning of the war:-
The Syrian civil war grew out of the widespread discontent among the people of Syria with the Syrian government led by President Bashar Al Assad. Long before the war began, people complained about the prevalent corruption, high unemployment, lack of political freedom and state repression that were a characteristic of the Assad government. In March 2011, the first uprising of prodemocracy demonstrations began to erupt in South Syria, the city of Deraa being the epicentre. These protests drew inspiration from the Arab Spring protests early in 2011. The government retaliated by using brute force to crush the protests. This triggered nationwide protests demanding President Assad’s resignation. The government crackdown further intensified. In response, the opposition rebels took up arms, the reasons for which ranged from self- defence to the expulsion of the security forces from the local areas. The violence escalated in no time and Syria descended into civil war as numerous rebel groups were formed to fight the government forces over the country’s control.
The Rise of Jihadist Groups:-
The war would not have lasted this long if either the rebels or the government had managed to defeat the other and restore political stability in the country. But as the war stretched on further, it metamorphosized into an even dangerous form as Jihadist groups took advantage of the political unrest to seize large parts of the country. These groups emerged in the guise of government opposing forces but soon their real identity of extremist Islamic propaganda groups began to take shape. As if the people weren’t already suffering enough due to the violent struggle between the rebels and the government, they had to bear the brunt of the tortures of these Jihadist groups as they began expanding their territory of control. ISIS emerged as the deadliest of these groups and the atrocities committed by it against innocent civilians are no secret. Women, Children, journalists, no one was spared by them From murders to beheading to rapes to human trafficking to sex slavery, there’s not a single cruelty that ISIS has not subjected the people of Syria to.
Foreign Intervention in the war:-
At this point, regional and world powers began to intervene in the war including Russia, USA, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. All these countries claim that they are fighting the Islamic State but in reality, they provide military, financial and political support to the government or the rebels depending on whose sides their interests lie. So, the funding from these countries is the reason why the war has intensified and continued for so long. Each of these countries has intervened in the matter for the protection of their own interests. Syria has turned into a proxy battleground where these external powers are working as puppeteers to steer the course of the war into their own favour. For them, the war is just a machinery to strengthen their hold over the region. The external powers have fostered sectarianism in Syria which was mostly secular by pitching the Sunni majority against the Shia Alawite sect to which President Bashar Al Assad also belongs. What started as a revolution against state oppression now turned into a civil war fuelled with religious hatred. This led to both the community sides to commit atrocious crimes towards each other causing huge loss of life and property which further dimmed the hopes of a peaceful settlement.
From left: U.S. President, Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Bashar Assad.
President Assad’s victory is important for Russia in maintaining its interests in Syria. It launched air campaign in 2015 September to target terrorist groups but these strikes mainly hit the western powers backed rebel groups. 6 months later, Putin withdrew the campaign but intense air strikes continued until the siege of rebel help Aleppo that fell in December 2016.
Shia supporter Iran spends exorbitant sums of money every year to bolster the Shia dominated government. Iran provides military advisors, credit, oil transfer and subsidized weapons to the Syrian govt. Iran has even deployed combat troops in Syria. Syria is Iran’s closest Arab ally. It is also the main transit point for the Iranian weapons shipments to the Lebanese Shia Islamist Movement Hezbollah which also sends thousands of fighters to fight alongside the Syrian government forces.
US have carried out air strikes in Syria since 2014. US claims that it only provides assistant to moderate rebel groups as advanced weapons might fall into the hands of the terrorists. Turkey is another staunch supporter of the rebels. In 2016, Turkish troops drove the IS militants out of one of the last remaining stretches of the Syrian side of border. They forced the US to deploy troops to the Syrian Democratic Front controlled areas to prevent clashes.
The effect of the war:-
According to the UN, more than 400,000 people have been killed in the past 6 years. Five million people, most of them women and children have fled Syria. Neighbouring Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey are struggling to cope up with the biggest refugee crisis in the recent history. About 10% refugees have sought shelter in Europe as the countries continue to argue over sharing the burden. About 6.3 million people are internally displaced in Syria. Around $ 3.4bn are estimated to be required to provide humanitarian assistance to the 11 million people inside Syria. More than half of the pre-war population of Syria i.e. 11 million people have been killed or have fled from the country. 85% of Syrians live in poverty with more than two thirds of the population in extreme poverty. 1.75 million Children are out of school. More than 7 million people are food insecure amid rising prices and food shortages. People continue to die as a result of incessant bombings, gunning and chemical attacks carried out by the warring forces.
Why have the peace attempts failed?
Neither side has been able to inflict a decisive defeat on the other. The International community was led to the conclusion that only a political solution could end the conflict. The UN Security Council had called for the 2012 Geneva Communique. Peace talks in 2014 broke down after 2 rounds due to Syrian govt’s refusal to discuss opposition demands. A year later, US and Russia persuaded representatives of the two sides to attend talks in 2016 to discuss a peace plan including ceasefire and elections. But the plans again collapsed. After the fall of Aleppo, the first face to face meeting of rebels and government officials took place in 2017 hosted by Kazakhstan, Turkey and Russia. Several UN mediated talks have followed since then yielding little success.
Present Scenario:-
With the fall of Aleppo, the Syrian government has the four biggest Syrian cities under its control. But large parts of the country are still held by other armed groups. And although IS militants have suffered extensive losses, they still hold large parts of central and northern Syria. The end to the war is still nowhere in sight. Air strikes by Russia and U.S. continue as hundreds of civilians die every day. To call it a civil war seems wrong on so many levels now, because the war is not among the people, it’s on the people, by the government. The humanitarian crisis in Syria has reached an all-time low with UN Secretary General calling it ‘hell on Earth’.
