Weil es in der Region keine Gesichtsmasken gibt, wurde begonnen welche in einer Kleiderfabrik herzustellen. Das Foto zeigt mehrere Arbeiter beim Nähen der Masken.
In einer alten Kleiderfabrik in Idlib werden nun Gesichtsmasken genäht. | Photo: picture alliance/ZUMA Press

Corona und die humanitäre Situation in Syrien: Die drohende Katastrophe in der Katastrophe

In der aktuellen Berichterstattung über die COVID-19-Pandemie wird kaum über das Schicksal derer berichtet, für die die Coronaviruskrise eine dramatische Verschlechterung ihrer ohnehin oft hoffnungslosen Situation bringen könnte: Vertriebene, Flüchtlinge, Menschen in Konfliktgebieten. Die Corona-Krise droht existierende humanitäre Krisen zu verschärfen. Ein Blick auf Nordsyrien zeigt, dass ein COVID-19-Ausbruch in solchen Situationen einerseits neue Konflikte hervorrufen und andererseits die COVID-19-Pandemie selbst weiter verschärfen könnte.

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The empty Piazza San Marco in Venice | Photo: Kaveman743 | CC BY-NC 2.0
The empty Piazza San Marco in Venice | Photo: Kaveman743 | CC BY-NC 2.0

COVID-19 as a Threat to Civic Spaces Around the World

As countries across the globe are desperately trying to control the COVID-19 pandemic, a rapidly increasing number of governments have started to impose severe restrictions on core civic freedoms. Although restrictions are currently necessary to save lives and protect health care from overburdening, these emergency measures must be proportional and strictly limited in time. It is crucial to monitor how restrictions are implemented to prevent governments from using the current crisis to justify new constraints on civic spaces, which have already have been shrinking in many places during the last 15 years.

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Das Foto zeigt die Webseite "Coronavirus - a soldier from Allah" auf einem Smartphone.
Extremists of all stripes reinterpret the Coronavirus pandemic to serve their ideologies. | Photo: PRIF

The Coronavirus as a Means to an End: Extremist Reinterpretations of the Pandemic

Various aspects of society and everyday life have become affected by the clampdown on the Coronavirus pandemic and the restrictions enforced to prevent it from spreading. While the spread of COVID-19 continues to be fought and researched under extreme pressure, many uncertainties remain regarding its origin and the social, political and economic consequences. These uncertainties are easily exploited by extremists such as right-wing and Islamist extremists. The spread of the Coronavirus is thus accompanied by the propagation of extremists’ discourses. Within a short period of time, they reach thousands of people – not only but especially via social media. 

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