GOAL calls for immediate action to help the people of Syria

Humanitarian aid agency, GOAL, today condemned the international community for its lack of response to the suffering of the people of Syria. The agency has called for immediate action to relieve the suffering and secure the safety of the people in Aleppo and right across Syria.

Vicki Aken, GOAL’s Country Director in Syria said: “For more than five years the international community has stood by while the government of Syria prosecuted a vicious and murderous war against its own people. Far too much emphasis throughout this time has been on stopping Syrian refugees entering Europe, rather than on stopping the genocidal campaign that has caused millions of Syrian people to flee their homeland in the first place.

“This horror has reached its zenith in eastern Aleppo. Evidence of the war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed daily by the Assad regime and its allies are screened nightly around the world. Yet still no response from the international community. Still no meaningful effort being made to relieve the suffering of the Syrian people. Over 500,000 people have been killed, and over 5 million forced to flee the country. At least 11.5 million people (more than half the pre – war population) have been left in need of humanitarian assistance.

“We are calling, in the name basic humanity, for the international community to move decisively to bring the wanton butchery in Aleppo, and right across Syria, to an end. Condemnatory statements and public hand-wringing is not, and never has been, enough.
It is time to act. Unless action is taken in Syria, such statements will be seen for that they self-evidently are, bare-faced hypocrisy.”