Presentation to
The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade
Barry Andrews, Chief Executive
Wednesday, 24 April 2013
GOAL is delivering humanitarian aid and emergency relief in 13 countries.
Our programmes include health, water, sanitation, nutrition, children-at-risk, community
development, livelihoods, food distribution, emergency response, and disaster preparedness and
mitigation.
GOAL employs close to 3,000 people – the vast majority of these, about 95 per cent, are local to
the countries within which we are operating.
Our latest country of operation is Syria, where a vicious civil war is in progress.
Given the appalling circumstances in Syria, I would like to confine my address to that country.
Last Thursday (April 18), in an address to the UN Security Council, Valerie Amos, the UN’s UnderSecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, pleaded with that body to do something to end the
situation in Syria, which she described as a humanitarian catastrophe.
I entirely agree with her description. Syria, by any reasonable measure, is indeed a humanitarian
catastrophe, and I echo her appeal to the Security Council to intervene.
After little more than two years of conflict, the most conservative estimates have 70,000 people
killed; 6.8 million in need of aid; 4.25 million internally displaced; and 1.3 million seeking refuge in
neighbouring countries.
Presentation to: The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade 24.04.13
It is estimated that half of the 6.8 million people needing aid are children.
It beggars belief that the world has allowed this tragedy to unfold, and is still doing so little to halt
it. The New York Times reported last month that less than 20 per cent of the money promised by
governments to the relief effort in Syria has thus far been delivered, which is nothing short of
disgraceful.
In order to help convince the Security Council and others that Syria demands their immediate
attention, I am urging Irish parliamentarians, and indeed elected representatives in all parts of the
free and democratic world, to keep raising the issue of this on-going humanitarian disaster - and to
keep asking what we are going to do about it, and when.
Ireland, currently holding the presidency of the Council of the EU, is in a unique position to lobby
within Europe and further afield for more to be done to end the conflict in Syria.
The international community must stand united and show unity of purpose. Our objective should
be two-fold: to bring the fighting to an end as soon as possible; and to address the humanitarian
needs of the millions of Syrian people who need our help.
In his address to the Security Council, the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Gutteres,
described Syria as the worst humanitarian crisis since the end of the Cold War. Worse even than
Iraq or Afghanistan, both of which Commissioner Gutteres has some experience.
Let none of us be in any doubt, the crisis in Syria is set to get worse still.
There is no end in sight to the conflict: the body count is growing by the day (reportedly, up to 500
people, including many women and children, were killed in one Damascus suburb during fighting
last week) as are the numbers of people being driven from their homes and of those in dire need
of aid.
When one also takes into account the humanitarian implications of the devastating impact the
conflict is having on the Syrian agricultural and food sectors, and therefore on food production, it
is not difficult to see why High Commissioner Gutteres estimates that half the population of Syria
will need aid by the end of this year.
GOAL is one of only a few agencies working inside Syria. We have been there since last November,
working in partnership with local relief committees, in the towns and villages in the region where
we deliver aid.
In her address to the Security Council, Under-Secretary-General Amos referred to the difficulties
aid agencies are facing because of the insecurity in Syria: “While the humanitarian situation on the
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Presentation to: The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade 24.04.13
ground is becoming more and more disastrous every day, the limitations on the ground have
forced us to being precariously close to suspending some critical humanitarian operations.”
GOAL is only too aware of the security implications of working inside Syria. Our base is in the socalled Northern Liberated Zone, and is no longer subject to clashes between government and
rebel forces, and therefore safer than many other parts of the country. Moreover, the rebel
groups who control the area are local, and appear to appreciate what we are doing for the
populations.
Thanks to support from Irish Aid and others, GOAL has delivered 13,000 blankets, 107 metric tons
of flour, and 3,000 hygiene kits to almost 64,000 displaced and vulnerable people. Having recently
signed a $4.6 million contract with the US government’s Food for Peace programme, we will soon
begin delivering 33,000 food packs to displaced people and onflict-affected communities in Idlib
Governorate. This distribution is expected to last for six months, and will benefit around 231,000
people.
We are, however, only bringing relief to a very tiny minority of people in Syria. And that is how it
will remain for all humanitarian agencies, until the conflict ends.
As High Commissioner Gutteres said last week: “Let us be very clear: there is no humanitarian
solution for the Syrian crisis. That is why it is so dramatic that we are not even seeing an inch of
progress towards a political solution. And so we, as humanitarians, are forced to go on planning
for the impossible.”
Two weeks ago, I went to Syria, to visit the GOAL programmes.
Like most places in the country, the town where GOAL is based has suffered badly. Amongst our
16 local staff, at least four were driven from their homes in Aleppo and Idlib cities. One man’s wife
(an IT teacher) is semi-paralysed after being shot by a sniper as she walked in the street, and
another young man lost his father and a brother to sniper fire from government troops stationed
in the town before the rebels took control.
I visited the remains of a mosque, where 80 people were killed last year in a government airstrike
during Friday prayers. I was told that bodies still remain under the rubble.
I visited an IDP (internally displaced people) centre, located in what had once been an agricultural
college. There are about 40 families staying there. The children are being educated by anyone who
knows how to write. A former policeman has taken on the role, but he has no books or pencils for
the children, only a single ledger in which he records their attendance.
A man on crutches told us how he had lost his 12-year-old son and his brother to government
forces.
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Presentation to: The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade 24.04.13
Not surprisingly, his views were radical, as were those of virtually everyone we met. As the fighting
continues, people are becoming increasing radicalised, even the children. Each fresh atrocity
deepens divisions that will be all the harder to reconcile when the conflict ends.
What I saw and was told about how this town has suffered amounted to a mere snapshot of what
is happening right across Syria. Indeed, the town has been far less affected than many other areas.
When are we going to do something about this?
I hope and trust that you, our Irish parliamentarians, will join me in asking that question. And keep
asking it, until something is done to bring an end to the humanitarian catastrophe in Syria.
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