“We are not promoting large-scale returns; the communities frankly are just not ready to absorb the people who are displaced and would come home…it will overwhelm the country,” said Amy Pope, Director General of the International Organization for Migration (IOM). “Many have returned to find their find their homes reduced to rubble,” she noted.

Speaking in Geneva shortly after returning from Damascus where she held talks with representatives of the caretaker authorities, Ms. Pope described how 14 years of war had destroyed “hospitals, schools, community centres” and much else.

“Rebuilding homes is just one part of the solution, but [Syrians] also need access to healthcare and essential services to feel secure and lay the foundations for recovery.”

More than half of Syria’s population has been displaced, some 16.7 million people need humanitarian assistance and well over six million Syrian refugees have sought shelter abroad.

‘Enormous’ need for funds

“The needs for funding - both financial resources, political resources - are going to be enormous,” Ms. Pope continued, confirming that IOM “will be part of any effort to help address the situation there”, including potentially at an upcoming Syria reconstruction conference planned by the French Government in January.

And yet the task of rebuilding and investing in Syria following the overthrow of the Assad regime by Hayat-Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) fighters and others, remains complicated by sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union, following the violent repression of pro-democracy protests in 2011 that escalated into civil war.

On Thursday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres appealed for international solidarity with Syrians “until conditions are met for all sanctions to be removed” by the Member States that imposed them, while also insisting on the urgent need to deliver humanitarian aid and support efforts to rebuild the economy.

Echoing that appeal, IOM’s Ms. Pope described the impact of sanctions in Syria, where “people do not have access to cash…they do not have access to credit”.

Goods are exchanged rather than purchased and salaries “are extremely low and often insufficient to meet their most basic of needs…So, to rebuild the situation, there will be a need to re-evaluate those sanctions.”

Human rights must be paramount

Also briefing in Geneva, UN human rights office (OHCHR) spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan insisted that “whoever is in power, the obligations of the States remain the same, and that is protection of all human rights for all Syrians. When it comes to sanctions, it is important that any sanctions imposed by any party take into consideration the importance of humanitarian aid for the civilians. This should not be affected in any way.”

Providing insight into her high-level meetings in Damascus, Ms. Pope described a “sense of openness” to the international community and a willingness to engage with it – a message that was “echoed throughout by all members of the caretaker government to all parties, whether they were other members of the diplomatic corps or other members of the UN family”.

Mass poverty

IOM has been unable to operate in Syria since 2018. Today, more than 90 per cent of Syrians live below the poverty line and 800,000 people have been newly displaced in recent weeks, presenting a massive new humanitarian emergency.

“Frankly, across the board we’ve had some pretty serious challenges meeting those humanitarian needs, largely because of the barriers put in place by the Assad government, but also because of the ongoing conflict,” Ms. Pope explained, in reference to ongoing clashes across Syria.

Important as immediate relief aid is for Syria, the IOM chief said that it should be accompanied by a “stabilizing” of the situation in Syria.

This would need to involve “justice, reparation and inclusivity”, she said, but also housing, land and property rights that are “key and at the heart of community stabilization in the context of the returns that we anticipate”.

Healthcare in peril

Meanwhile, echoing deep concerns over the scale of needs and “tremendous hardships” that Syrians still face, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) launched an appeal on Friday to raise $56.4 million over the next six months.

Displaced communities continue to live in overcrowded conditions in formal camps and shelters, with too little to eat and succumbing to respiratory infections and other communicable diseases including diarrhoea and scabies, warned Dr. Christina Bethke, Acting WHO Representative in Syria.

Speaking from Damascus, Dr. Bethke described one WHO assessment team’s mission to Idlib in the northwest of the country. They spoke to “dedicated surgeons who have worked tirelessly during this escalation over the last three weeks, often under attack and in order to save lives. One surgeon shared the words of these patients, saying, ‘We finally sleep at night, no longer worrying about being bombarded.’”

Funding for WHO’s appeal will sustain critical health services during the transition period, including 141 health facilities in northwest Syria that are at risk of “imminent closure in the coming weeks”, owing to a lack of resources.

“The health infrastructure is severely strained and we saw in just three weeks during this escalation 36 attacks on health care have been reported and over half the country’s hospitals are non-functional,” Dr. Bethke said.