泥沼化した世界

芸能人のボランティアをシニカルに見る方がいますが、シリアの問題もアンジェリーナジョリーがレポートしているとついつい見てしまう自分がいます（汗）多くの人に問題を知ってもらうために果たす役割はものすごく大きそうです。10年近くもこのような問題に関わり続けている彼女を尊敬します。





さて、シリアで発生しているポリオについては、世界保健機関（ＷＨＯ）と国連児童基金（ユニセフ）は、予防接種を実施すると発表しましたが、WHOのプレスリリースを確認してみます。TOEICには戦争も病気も出ないですが、プレスリリースですのでTOEICでも頻出する表現が使われているものです。

WHO update on polio outbreak in Middle East
WHO statement 
13 November 2013
A comprehensive outbreak response continues to roll out across the Middle East following confirmation of the polio outbreak in Syria.
Seven countries and territories are holding mass polio vaccination campaigns with further extensive campaigns planned for December targeting 22 million children. In a joint resolution all countries of the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region have declared polio eradication to be an emergency and called on Pakistan to urgently access and vaccinate all of its children to stem the international spread of its viruses. The countries also called for support in negotiating and establishing access to those children who are currently unreached with polio vaccination.
WHO and UNICEF are committed to working with all organizations and agencies providing humanitarian assistance to Syrians affected by the conflict. This includes vaccinating all Syrian children no matter where they are, whether in government or contested areas, or indeed outside Syria.
The first priorities are to resupply and reactivate the required health infrastructure, including redeploying health workers to deliver vaccine in worst-affected areas, and moving vaccine across conflict lines where necessary and possible. The government has committed to reach all children; information on which areas are not reached will guide corrective actions and planning for the next rounds. All parties are working to find solutions for conflict-affected areas.
Dr. Jaouad Mahjour, Director of Communicable Diseases Prevention and Control at WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office, stressed the necessity of reaching all children inside Syria and in neighbouring countries. "WHO and UNICEF are coordinating the vaccination campaign with all concerned parties to make sure that all children are vaccinated no matter where they are located."
Larger-scale outbreak response across the Syrian Arab Republic and neighboring countries will continue, to last for at least 6 to 8 months depending on the area and based on evolving epidemiology.


「ああ、よかった」と素朴に喜んでいたのですが今朝New York Review of Books最新号の以下の記事を読んだら事態はそんな単純でないことがわかりました。

Syria: On the Way to Genocide?
Charles Glass

この記事は定期購読者向け（Yutaは米国アマゾンからKindle版を購読）の記事なので詳細な紹介は差し控えますが、Economistの記事のタイトルがStill no hint of a compromiseとタイトルあったように、米国とロシア、サウジアラビアやカタールとイラン、トルコとアラブの代理戦争となり妥協の余地がないドロドロの状態なのが分かるものでした。

その記事で紹介されていたのが同じ雑誌のブログ記事でした。医療機関や医師が攻撃対象にされているというのです。こんな状況なら、ポリオが流行してしまうのもうなづけます。

Syria’s Assault on Doctors
Annie Sparrow

Over the last few weeks, the growing plight of Syria’s civilian population has drawn belated international attention to the country’s failing health system. In late October, in the eastern part of the country, the World Health Organization confirmed an outbreak of polio—a highly infectious, fast-spreading disease that poses a potential threat not just to Syria but to the entire region. At the same time, reports of malnutrition and disease in the besieged areas on the outskirts of Damascus and other embattled cities, where there are severe shortages of food and milk, have raised new fears of a spreading public health disaster. But these developments are hardly new, nor are they, as the international press has suggested, simply the unfortunate byproducts of an increasingly brutal war. They are connected to something far more sinister: a direct assault on the medical system by the Syrian government as a strategy of war.

The Assad regime has come to view doctors as dangerous, their ability to heal rebel fighters and civilians in rebel-held areas a weapon against the government. Over the past two and a half years, doctors, nurses, dentists, and pharmacists who provide treatment to civilians in contested areas have been arrested and detained; paramedics have been tortured and used as human shields, ambulances have been targeted by snipers and missiles; medical facilities have been destroyed; the pharmaceutical industry devastated. Directly and indirectly, the attacks have had a profound effect on tens of thousands of health professionals and millions of Syrian patients, let alone the more than 2 million refugees who have fled to neighboring countries.

国連もこうした事態を黙認しているわけではないようで、先月国連安全保障理事会がシリア政府に医療機関への攻撃を非難した声明を出しているようです。

The assault on the health system has become a weapon of mass destruction, transforming Syria into a country with diseases of poverty and war. The only appropriate international response to this tragedy is for the UN Security Council to insist that the Syrian government allow safe humanitarian access to the areas of the country most in need and respect medical neutrality for all medical care workers. In October, for the first time, the UN Security Council issued a presidential statement, with Russian support, that condemned attacks on medical care in Syria. In view of its close ties with the Assad regime, Russia should be pushed to insist that the Syrian government release detained doctors and healthcare workers, lift the siege that undermines medical care, and stop impeding the provision of aid impartially to all in need. Clear pressure from Putin may be the only way to convince Assad that his war strategy is turning his country into one of the world’s most underdeveloped nations.

以下が安保理声明の原文です。


“The Security Council also recalls that under international humanitarian law, the wounded and sick must receive, to the fullest extent practicable, and with the least possible delay, medical care and attention required by their condition and that medical and humanitarian personnel, facilities and transport must be respected and protected. To this end, the Council urges free passage to all areas for medical personnel and supplies, including surgical items and medicine.

この記事を読んで、Economistがとりあえずすべての陣営が妥協をして戦争を集結させることを主張していた意義がようやく理解できたきがします。