By Lindsey Schibelhut, Senior Reporter.
What do you do when your homeland is subjected to unrelenting war and devastation? For many, it leaves them with little options and they are forced to become refugees.
It has been five years since the start of the Syrian refugee crisis and on Wednesday, March 16, an SVSU panel consisting of, Ingrid Hoskins, president of SVSU’s History Club; John Baesler, SVSU associate professor of history; Rosina Hassoun, SVSU assistant professor of sociology; and Mouhanad Hammami, president of The National Arab American Medical Association Michigan Chapter, each spoke about the ongoing humanitarian crisis. This included a brief history of how it began, their personal connection to it, with a special focus on the medical needs of the refugees.
“We think it’s one of the great, great problems of our time and it does not get nearly enough attention in the American media,” explains Baesler. “…So we feel it’s our civic duty to inform ourselves and to talk about the situation that the people in Syria face.”
Hoskins started out by giving an overview of the conflict in Syria, and the timeline of the region that has led to this time in history, while Baesler spoke on the impact of the crisis in Syria on the West.
“Since October 2015, the United States has accepted about 2,000 Syrian refugees,” says Baesler. “Of those, 200 have come to Michigan and joined the roughly 3,000 Syrian-Americans in the greater Detroit area.”
Hassoun then discussed her work with running an after-school program for children with learning disabilities at the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services Access in Dearborn, Mich.
“I had 40 kids in my after-school program and many of them were victims of war,” explains Hassoun. “The children had ADHD, hyperactivity, physical disabilities, emotional disabilities and they all were trying to learn English.”
Brandi VanderWoude, 20, treasurer for SVSU’s Phi Alpha Theta, says the panel gave her a new perspective on this ongoing issue.
“I did not know a lot of the history behind it,” says VanderWoude. “It pushes me to do more of my own personal research, as well as talk to others to raise more awareness.”
During her speech, Hassoun told the story of one child who was in the after-school program, he was a Yemeni victim of war. The boy had been living in a village and during the fighting of the civil war, the villagers had armed themselves and his father had weapons in the house.
“The little boy picked up a rifle, his father’s rifle, and accidentally shot his own father with it,” explains Hassoun. “His father did not die, but he was severely crippled. So every time that little boy looked at his father, there was overwhelming guilt. His father forgave him long ago, but the child could not forgive himself. He was 9-years-old, but emotionally a 6-year old.”
Hassoun also spoke of her own family ties to the region. She is the daughter and granddaughter of immigrants. Hassoun explained how her father had an “obsession with hangers.” He would face all the hangers in the same direction because it was easier to get the clothes out of the closet, in case they needed to pack up and leave the house in a hurry.
For Pam Saead, an international studies major, having lived in the middle east for six years, she is very concerned with the situation in Syria.
“I used to live in Yemen and I also lived in Jordan, they brought in a lot of statistics that tell you exactly as a medical doctor the disease that is flourishing in these areas, and a lot of the things we take for granted, and it puts a human element in it,” says Saead.
Hammami is originally from Aleppo. He outlines the problems that aren’t usually thought of during armed conflicts, such as disruptions in food supplies, destruction of the infrastructure, destruction of basic human needs (i.e. medical supplies among others) and disintegration of communities and families.
“Unfortunately, we as humans we do not learn from history,” says Hammami. “And we have gone through this cycle after cycle and we have seen what armed conflicts can leave as consequences, but we still are not good students I guess.”
Since public health is Hammami’s domain, he mentions how we have been “boasting for quite a while now that we eradicated polio,” but warns that disruptions in public healthcare have reawakened this disease.
“I am sad to tell you that polio is back and active in Syria,” says Hammami.
Some of the other issues occurring medically are communicable diseases, 41 percent of which is skin diseases (i.e. lice, scabies), and respiratory diseases according to Hammami.
Hammami went on to say that there are approximately 5 million refugees registered by the U.N. He says the bulk of them are in Turkey (2.7 million), 1 million are in Lebanon, 600,000 are in Jordan, while a few hundred thousand being in Iraq and in Egypt.
“Almost 80 percent of those refugees are children,” says Hammami. “There are 5.6 million children inside Syria that are in need for aid…The cost of the aid that those refugees need is almost 1.5 billion according to the U.N.”
At the end of the presentations, the speakers took audience questions. One in particular was “What realistically can we do, what small little things can our communities do?” Hammami answered by saying that we need to use the voice of the people to bring reason to this situation.
Hammami concluded the evening by saying, “Unfortunately, I cannot tell you that there is any end of this conflict in site…But we should never give up hope and I hope that you guys are going be a part of this by whatever you can do. We are still a civil society where our voices can be heard and we probably need to make sure that people are aware of what’s happening in my home country.”
