Syria: "In Idleb, they bomb schools, refugee camps ..."

Raphaël Pitti is a humanitarian doctor, in charge of training at UOSSM, the Union of Relief and Medical Care Organizations (which calls for donations to finance the establishment of mobile clinics in Syria), an NGO active in the area from Idleb in Syria. He was received Wednesday at the Elysee Palace to alert the president to the humanitarian emergency in this region at war.

President Macron received you, with all the NGOs operating in Syria, at the Elysée Palace. What do you expect from him?

RAPHAËL PITTI. We alerted him to the humanitarian situation in the northwestern province of Idleb. A region long regarded as a "safe zone", where refugees from cities like Aleppo flocked, bringing the total population to 4 million - 40% of them displaced. International emergency aid, including food, was routed through humanitarian corridors overseen by the UN from Turkey. But the Assad regime, supported militarily by the Russians, decided to recover this territory, the last which still escapes it. Putin and Assad want to proclaim that they have won the war. They bomb schools, markets, refugee camps. They have destroyed since April 2019 our 67 medical structures on site.

In this area, there are also jihadists?

In the midst of the population there are some 70,000 rebels. Including around 10,000 ultra-radicalized, ex-al-Qaeda, the Tahrir-al-Sham group. But he did not control the whole rebellion.

What can France do? What does Macron tell you?

He prefers to negotiate with the Russians, to privilege direct discussion rather than to make strong declarations which lead to nothing. The president recognizes that the Russians draw argument from the presence of the rebels, do not distinguish in their combat the jihadists from the civil populations, whom they de facto hold hostages. While these civilians have fled the Assad regime and yearn for freedom. What we are asking for is to be able to provide medical and food assistance to the population. Otherwise, we risk a real famine. And the refugees, fleeing the bombardments to the north, are massing on the Turkish border, which they could overflow. It's urgent.

Precisely, does France respond to it?

The President explained to us that he is negotiating directly with the Russians for the reopening of the humanitarian corridors. There were three; Macron is confident in the reopening, which should therefore be authorized by Russia, of two of them. As for the third, which would allow direct assistance to the Syrian Kurds in the northeast, he hopes that the discussions will also succeed. But it is less certain, the Turks (Editor's note: allies of the Russians) would put pressure against this reopening…

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