UNHCR Special Envoy Angelina Jolie made a statement on the seventh anniversary of the start of the crisis in Syria last week.
“Today we mark another shameful milestone in the man-made tragedy that is the Syria conflict.
“This is a war that has been waged almost exclusively against civilians, who have been bombed, gassed, besieged, starved, tortured and displaced, for seven interminable years, in the full gaze of the world. Hundreds of thousands of innocent lives have been sacrificed to this senseless conflict.
“After seven years of war and atrocities we are beyond excuses. The Syrian refugees I have met are tired of empty promises and sympathetic statements, and rightly so. Everyone can see that the international community is not acting as it should, and that countries with influence in the conflict are putting their perceived interests ahead of international law and the rights of Syrian people, in a way that is nothing short of inhumane. We will be haunted in decades to come by our failure in Syria, as we are by other mass crimes of the recent past.
“My thoughts are with Syrian families, who have played no part in the conflict and whose homes, livelihoods and hopes have been destroyed, and with everyone working bravely to save life and alleviate suffering inside Syria, in unimaginably difficult circumstances.
“Until there is peace in Syria, we must stay the course in protecting those forced from their homes, wherever they are. This is the least that we can do.
“And I call again on the members of the United Nations Security Council acting with other nations to address the roots of the conflict – demanding not only a ceasefire and a diplomatic path out of the crisis, but justice and accountability for monstrous human rights violations committed against the Syrian people.”
