That’s not surprising, considering that since that time very little has changed for the better on the ground. If anything, as winter comes around once more, and it is expected to be far more severe than in recent years, the flight of refugees from Syria continues at the same pace as before, if not more, with the bulk of those displaced internally or stranded on foreign soil surviving in abject poverty.
Migrants continue to risk life and limb in dangerous waters simply to reach safer shores where their lives might not be extinguished at any moment by airstrikes or barrel bombs. And sadly those who survive the perilous journey face the same brutality and indifference that they had hoped to leave behind.
Moreover, the lion’s share of pledges made by numerous countries to help refugees has yet to materialize, while the overburdened countries hosting them such as Turkey, Jordan and tiny Lebanon, which bears the word’s greatest proportion compared to its own population, are simply trying to keep their heads above water.
Meanwhile, developed countries that are spearheading the calls to assist refugees are themselves shirking from the responsibility of taking in these displaced families, women, children and elderly, with most of them considering the arrival of a mere few thousand as far more than their countries can handle.
It is truly shameful that today, more than five years after the start of the Syrian conflict, the world still finds it beyond its ability to come to the rescue of desperate people with no one else to turn to.