The Ominous Story of Syria's Climate Refugees

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Farmers who have escaped the battle-torn nation explain how drought and government abuse have driven social violence

Kemal Ali ran a successful well-digging business for farmers in northern Syria for 30 years. He had everything he needed for the job: a heavy driver to pound pipe into the ground, a battered but reliable truck to carry his machinery, a willing crew of young men to do the grunt work. More than that, he had a sharp sense of where to dig, as well as trusted contacts in local government on whom he could count to look the other way if he bent the rules. Then things changed. In the winter of 2006–2007, the water table began sinking like never before.

Ali had a problem. “Before the drought I would have to dig 60 or 70 meters to find water,” he recalls. “Then I had to dig 100 to 200 meters. Then, when the drought hit very strongly, I had to dig 500 meters. The deepest I ever had to dig was 700 meters. The water kept dropping and dropping.” From that winter through 2010, Syria suffered its most devastating drought on record. Ali's business disappeared. He tried to find work but could not. Social uprisings in the country began to escalate. He was almost killed by cross fire. Now Ali sits in a wheelchair at a camp for wounded and ill refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos.

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40 years of fury

Syria's water crisis is largely of its own making. Back in the 1970s, the military regime led by President Hafez al-Assad launched an ill-conceived drive for agricultural self-sufficiency. No one seemed to consider whether Syria had sufficient groundwater and rainfall to raise those crops. Farmers made up for water shortages by drilling wells to tap the country's underground water reserves. When water tables retreated, people dug deeper. In 2005 the regime of Assad's son and successor, President Bashar al-Assad, made it illegal to dig new wells without a license issued personally, for a fee, by an official—but it was mostly ignored, out of necessity. “What's happening globally—and particularly in the Middle East—is that groundwater is going down at an alarming rate,” says Colin Kelley of the University of California, Santa Barbara, the PNAS study's lead author. “It's almost as if we're driving as fast as we can toward a cliff.”

Syria raced straight over that precipice. “The war and the drought, they are the same thing,” says Mustafa Abdul Hamid, a 30-year-old farmer from Azaz, near Aleppo. He talks with me on a warm afternoon at Kara Tepe, the main camp for Syrians on Lesbos. Next to an outdoor spigot, an olive tree is draped with drying baby clothes. Two boys run among the rows of tents and temporary shelters as they play a game of war, with sticks for imaginary guns. “The start of the revolution was water and land,” Hamid says.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ominous-story-of-syria-climate-refugees/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+energy-and-sustainability+%28Topic%3A+Energy+%26+Sustainability%29

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1. This is not a “European crisis,” it’s a Syrian crisis:

A human rights expert on why we’re only now paying attention to a decades-old global refugee crisis, and what you can do

The recent G-20 summit in Turkey had as a central part of its discussion the Syrian refugee crisis and the effect of the Paris terrorist attacks on that crisis. This comes at a time when the general consensus is that the crisis has reached a point that is nearly impossible to manage. One humanitarian relief worker writes in the Guardian,

After five years of war, it is hard to imagine that the conditions in Syria could get any worse, but they have. Every time we think we’ve seen it all, the conflict takes another turn and surprises us … They have lived through several years of conflict, but the possibility of a siege is starting to very much wear on them. Intensified fighting and airstrikes in and around Aleppo have cut off the main – and most direct – humanitarian route from the north. We are able to access the city through another route for now, but that road is unreliable and risky. The whole area has been under attack for several days so safe spaces or places for people to go are very limited. Over the past year, we’ve seen a drastic reduction in areas where innocent civilians can be safe from the conflict. From a humanitarian standpoint, we are concerned about the shrinking of safe spaces for civilians.

To get a sense of the dimensions of this crisis, consider that the United Nations reports that as of now there are about 4.7 million registered Syrian refugees, including those in Turkey, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and North Africa. Ten percent live in refugee camps. Almost 900,000 Syrian applications for asylum have been filed in Europe.

http://www.salon.com/2016/02/24/this_is_not_a_european_crisis_its_a_syrian_crisis_a_human_rights_expert_on_why_were_only_now_paying_attention_to_a_decades_old_global_refugee_crisis_and_what_you_can_do/