The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), commonly known as Rojava, has illuminated the plight of the stateless—even though statelessness in the AANES’s case defies the narrow definition of international law. Despite comprising almost a third of Syrian territory, the AANES has not been recognized as a legitimate body politic neither by the Syrian state, nor by the international community. The limitations that come with this lack of recognition may have disastrous consequences during the COVID-19 pandemic.
War-torn, under attack, and facing a pandemic
The AANES faces dire humanitarian conditions caused by years of war against ISIS and further aggravated by the recent Turkish invasion in October 2019. Six-hundred thousand IDPs and refugees, largely a product of two occupations by Turkey, live in camps across the region, where access to water is limited and social distancing is all-but-impossible. In addition, there are tens of thousands of ISIS prisoners and their families guarded in camps and prisons by the local administration. Since their countries of origin have been unwilling to repatriate them or to put them on trial, this burden has fallen on the AANES. Overall, the administration has few resources to ensure adequate protection and healthcare for its vulnerable populations—especially in the context of a pandemic.
The region’s health care system has been heavily affected by war, with only 2 of 11 hospitals fully operational. There are only 40 ventilators to serve a population of up to 5 million, and given an acute lack of beds and medical practitioners, the region has the capacity to treat less than 500 cases. Moreover, Turkey, which occupies parts of the region, has been regularly cutting the water flow to the AANES, leaving up to a million people without clean water. To make things even worse, attacks by Turkish forces and Turkey-backed militias continue despite the UN’s call for a global ceasefire due to the pandemic, which was observed by the Syrian Democratic forces (SDF).
