Editor’s Note:
The unhappy anniversary of the Syrian conflict grounded a number of statements as well as new analysis of the associated humanitarian crisis. We selected a composite presented below. Additional commentary by agencies, NGOs and in the literature is available throughout this edition.

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Joint statement – As Syria conflict enters a fifth year, what does it take to end the crisis and end the suffering?
NEW YORK/GENEVA/ROME/AMMAN, 13 March 2015 –

“The appalling crisis in Syria is entering a fifth year. A crisis that continues to exact an unconscionable human cost. A crisis that the international community has failed to stop.
“More than 200,000 people have been killed. Children and young people are subject to and surrounded by violence, despair and deprivation. Women and girls, and men and boys in detention, are at particular risk of sexual violence. More than 12.2 million people in Syria need life-saving aid and 3.9 million refugees have fled across borders seeking safety and security.

“We have expressed our horror, our outrage, our frustration as we have watched the tragedy unfold. As humanitarian leaders we are committed to continuing to do our best to help all those caught in the middle of this war. People who are vulnerable. Besieged. With nowhere to go.

“We need world leaders to put aside their differences and use their influence to bring about meaningful change in Syria: to press the parties to end indiscriminate attacks on civilians; to secure the lifting of sieges where more than 212,000 people have been trapped without food for months; to enable delivery of vital surgical and other medical supplies; to end the collective punishment of civilians by cutting off of water and power supplies; and to avoid the complete collapse of the education system.

“The people of Syria – and people around the world – want the suffering to end.

“We ask ‘what does it take’ to end this crisis? The future of a generation is at stake. The credibility of the international community is at stake.”

– Valerie Amos, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs
– Zainab Hawa Bangura, Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict
– Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization
– Ertharin Cousin, Executive Director, World Food Programme
– Antonio Guterres, High Commissioner for Refugees
– Pierre Krähenbühl, Commissioner-General, UNRWA
– Anthony Lake, Executive Director, UNICEF
– Leila Zerrougui, Special Representative on Children and Armed Conflict

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Refugees endure worsening conditions as Syria’s conflict enters 5th year
UNHCR Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Press Releases, 12 March 2015
Geneva, 12 March 2015 – As the Syrian conflict enters its fifth year, millions of refugees in neighbouring countries and those displaced within the country are caught in alarmingly deteriorating conditions, facing an even bleaker future without more international support, UNHCR warned today.

With no political solution to the conflict in sight, most of the 3.9 million Syrian refugees in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt see no prospect of returning home in the near future, and have scant opportunity to restart their lives in exile. Well over half of all Syrian refugees in Lebanon live in insecure dwellings – up from a third last year – posing a constant challenge to keep them safe and warm. A survey of 40,000 Syrian families in Jordan’s urban areas found that two-thirds were living below the absolute poverty line.

UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres reiterated that much, much more needed to be done to pull Syrians out of their nightmare of suffering. “After years in exile, refugees’ savings are long depleted and growing numbers are resorting to begging, survival sex and child labour. Middle-class families with children are barely surviving on the streets: one father said life as a refugee was like being stuck in quicksand – every time you move, you sink down further,” he said.

“This worst humanitarian crisis of our era should be galvanizing a global outcry of support, but instead help is dwindling. With humanitarian appeals systematically underfunded, there just isn’t enough aid to meet the colossal needs – nor enough development support to the hosting countries creaking under the strain of so many refugees,” Guterres added. He pointed out that with the massive influx of Syrian refugees over the past four years, Turkey had now become the world’s biggest refugee hosting country and had spent over US$ 6 billion on direct assistance to refugees…

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12 March 2015
SG/SM/16588
International Community Must Not Shirk from Collective Responsibility to Syria, Secretary-General Warns, Urging Support for Syrian-Led Political Transition
Secretary-General
The following statement by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was issued today:
The Syrian people feel increasingly abandoned by the world as they enter the fifth year of the war that has torn their country apart. They and their neighbours continue to suffer under the eyes of an international community, still divided and incapable of taking collective action to stop the killing and destruction.

In March 2011, thousands of Syrian civilians went to the streets peacefully calling for political reform. This legitimate demand was met with a violent response from the Syrian authorities. Over time, civilians took up arms in response, regional Powers became involved, and radical groups gained a foothold.

Today over 220,000 Syrians have been killed. Almost half of the country’s men, women and children have been forced to flee their homes. More than 4 million people have sought refuge in neighbouring countries, while a further 7.6 million are displaced within Syria. Every day brings more death, displacement and destruction, raising the fearsome prospect of the total collapse of this country and even more serious consequences in the region.

While global attention is rightfully focused on the threat to regional and international peace and security, which terrorist groups such as Da’esh pose, our focus must continue to be with the Syrian people. Bringing the deadly Syrian conflict to an end is imperative if we are to extinguish the fires of violent extremism and sectarianism that burn throughout the entire region.

The United Nations continues to provide daily life-saving assistance to the Syrian people. In Aleppo, Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura is tirelessly working to bring about a suspension on the use of heavy weapons so that the United Nations can deliver additional humanitarian assistance to the city’s beleaguered population. Later this month, I will chair an International Pledging Conference in Kuwait to raise funds to help the Syrian people and countries throughout the region that are bearing the heavy burden of hosting millions of Syrian refugees. I hope that the response at the conference will be extremely generous. I thank the Government of Kuwait for hosting the event for the third time.

Humanitarian assistance can only alleviate Syria’s suffering, not stop the war. For this, a political solution to this senseless conflict is necessary. I call upon the international community to unite and lend its full support to United Nations efforts to forge an inclusive, Syrian-led political transition based on the Geneva Communiqué and which meets the aspirations of the Syrian people for freedom, dignity and justice. It is also incumbent upon the Syrian parties themselves, including especially President Bashar al-Assad, to take decisive steps to end the bloodshed and to start a political process. Governments or movements that aspire to legitimacy do not massacre their own people.

The lack of accountability in Syria has led to an exponential rise in war crimes, crimes against humanity and other human rights violations. Each day brings reports of fresh horrors: executions, widespread arbitrary arrests, abductions and disappearances, as well as systematic torture in detention; indiscriminate bombardment of civilian areas, including with barrel bombs; siege and starvation tactics; use of chemical weapons, and atrocities committed by Da’esh and other extremist groups.

We have an obligation to the Syrian people to help ensure that serious crimes committed over the past four years do not go unpunished. The Security Council has in the past shown its ability to act against the use of chemical weapons in Syria and to compel the delivery of humanitarian assistance to vulnerable Syrians. I call upon the Security Council to take determined measures to resolve this crisis and on the way forward.

Let us work together now to build a better future for the people of Syria and the region. We cannot shirk this collective responsibility.