(Orient Net - The Harvard Crimson)
Peter Maurer, President of International Committee of the Red Cross, emphasized the importance of concerted international attention to address the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Syria at the Institute of Politics Wednesday, The Harvard Crimson reported.
“We are relatively good in delivering water and sanitation services in Syria. It’s covering large part of the territories,” Maurer said at a panel in the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum.
While Maurer said the Red Cross is making progress in that field, he underlined the “complete struggle” to provide medical services to Syrians.
“Both sides were watching scrupulously. When one package is unloaded from the truck that in the other part there would also be another package unloaded,” Maurer said. “it’s constant on-spot, real-time negotiation.”
Panelist Michael Ignatieff – a professor of the practice at the Harvard Kennedy School – called the Syrian refugee a “humanitarian and strategic catastrophe” and said the war in Syria was a “geostrategic issue”.
He argued that the US should admit more Syrian refugees, having allowed about 3,000 in its borders since the beginning of the crisis in 2011. Last September, Ignatieff penned an op-ed in The New York Times urging countries outside of Europe to take on more Syrian refugees.
At the panel, Ignatieff also pointed to the need for more resources for organizations operating in the war-torn country.
“Large international organizations like Red Cross, UNHCR and World Food Program have done their best, but they are underfunded,” he said.
