Don't forget the Syrians

File photo from 2018 of civilians and volunteers from the Syrian Civil Defense as they search for survivors after several airstrikes destroyed buildings in the city of Hamoria, al-Ghouta (Syria) .MOHAMMED BADRA / EFE

A decade after its outbreak, the Syrian war - one of the bloodiest and most inhumane contemporary conflicts - is in a pandemic-induced coma.

Meanwhile, an international community suffering from war fatigue seems to forget the drama of the hundreds of thousands of deaths, torture and mass disappearances and that more than half of the population is uprooted and suffering serious hardships.

The global and regional powers that have encouraged the contenders, and that also got involved on the battlefield, have opted for the stabilization of the fronts after the spread of covid-19.

President Bashar al-Assad cannot hide behind an apparent military victory the failure that represents the loss of control over more than a third of the national territory and the ruin of a country whose economy has regressed decades.

Despite the fact that the weapons fell silent a year ago, the regime continues to turn a deaf ear to the political path offered by the United Nations to reach a consensus on a constitutional reform prior to the calling of credible elections.

The international community must keep up the pressure on Damascus to accept once and for all that there is no military way out for an endless war and unblock its participation in the Syrian Constitutional Committee, constituted in Geneva since 2019 together with representatives of the opposition and civil society.

But the world, and Western states in particular, cannot fail to shelter more than five million refugees and support their host countries, or to relax the humanitarian effort to assist more than six million internally displaced persons.

Without abandoning the most vulnerable to their fate, the message for Assad has to be unequivocal: he will not have recognition among nations or support to rise from devastation if he does not sit down to negotiate with those who rebelled against oppression 10 years ago.

In this context, the first glimpses of universal justice for Syria are welcome, coming from Germany with the recent conviction of a former regime agent for illegal detention and torture.

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