Opinion: As doom rains down in Syria, the world damns itself in its silence
Kareem Shaheen
Kareem Shaheen is a journalist, columnist and editor based in Montreal. He is a former Middle East and Turkey correspondent for the Guardian.
The last time I visited Syria’s Idlib, it was April, 2017, two days after a devastating chemical attack had claimed the lives of more than 80 people in a town called Khan Sheikhun. I stood in the local cemetery and said a prayer at the freshly dug graves of a family that had lost nearly 20 of its members in the attack.
Earlier in the day, I visited a member of the family, Abdul Hamid al-Yousef, who had buried his wife and two infant children in the same small plot of land after they had suffocated to death while hiding in the basement of their home. He had been out ferrying the wounded to the local hospital, which was so overwhelmed that they left many of the dead in a shed in the courtyard outside.
The hospital was bombed; so was the shed. Those left for dead under it were effectively killed twice, as if to underscore the apparent worthlessness of their lives.
Lives that still mean nothing today.
Read more at: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-as-doom-rains-down-in-syria-the-world-damns-itself-in-its-silence/
Elizabeth Tsurkov, stimulating commentary:
https://twitter.com/ElizraelSeems like the messiest war but that's hard to say, war is war.
