“New ‘Flesh-Eating’ Disease Spreading Across Syria and the Middle East”

Cases of Leishmaniasis up from 23,000 before the war to 41,000 in 2013: Syrian Ministry of Health

The disease is spreading across Syria, with cases also reported in Palestine, Israel, Lebanon and Turkey, according to reports.

“Between 2000 and 2012, there were only six reported cases of the disease in Lebanon.”

However, in 2013 alone, some 1,033 cases were reported in Southern Lebanon, of which 96 per cent occurred among the displaced Syrian refugees, the Lebanese Ministry of Health has said.

Refugee settlements in Nizip, southern Turkey, have reported several hundred cases of the disease.

Speaking to Mail Online, Dr Waleed Al-Salem, one of the authors of the research was carried out in the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, said: ‘It’s a very bad situation. The disease has spread dramatically in Syria, but also into countries like Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey and even into southern Europe with refugees coming in.

‘There are thousands of cases in the region but it is still underestimated because no one can count the exact number of people affected.

‘When people are bitten by a sand-fly – which are tiny and smaller than a mosquito – it can take anything between two to six months to have the infection.

‘So someone might have picked it up in Syria but then they may have fled into Lebanon or Turkey, oreven into Europe as they seek refuge.

‘Prior to the outbreak of war there was good control of diseases, parasites and sand flies but when the conflict started no one cared, conditions worsened and the health system broke down, which has created an ideal environment for disease outbreaks.’

Of course, it wasn’t that “no one cared.” It was that no one was able to provide adequate care because the United States, Israel, the GCC, and NATO had overrun the country with savage terrorists and destroyed the infrastructure, not to mention the Western sanctions imposed upon the country which, alone, would have made it difficult to treat.

NOTHING SHORT OF GENOCIDE !

Submitted by a reader

Genocide is being committed against people of Syria by all those who destabilized the country

In 2010, there were no Syrian refugees drowning in the Mediterranean while escaping the Wahhabi block terrorists. Even polio had long been eradicated across the country…

When President Barack Obama secretly authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to begin arming Syria’s embattled rebels in 2013, the spy agency knew it would have a willing partner to help pay for the covert operation. It was the same partner the CIA has relied on for decades for money and discretion in far-off conflicts: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. —Mark Mazzetti and Matt Apuzzo

U.S. officials have not disclosed the amount of the Saudi contribution, which is by far the largest from another nation to the program to arm the rebels against President Bashar Assad’s military. But estimates have put the total cost of the arming and training effort at several billion dollars.

Statement to the Security Council on Syria, New York, 27 January 2016

Since 2011, more than 250,000 people have been killed, well over a million injured, and 6.5 million internally displaced within Syria. About 4.6 million refugees, and most of the remaining population – some 13.5 million people – are in dire need of humanitarian assistance, said the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Stephen O’Brien.

At least 24 migrants including 10 children drowned in the Mediterranean on Wednesday, after their boat capsized near Greece.

In 2015, some 3,811 people were reported dead or missing in the Mediterranean, most all were migrants trying to escape war zones, poverty or persecution in their homelands, reported the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

At least 224 similar deaths have occurred so far this year, said IOM.

Highlights of a U.N. Report Last Week

• ISIL launches an offensive on GoS controlled areas of Deir-Ez-Zor city causing the displacement of 3,200 families;
• Unconfirmed reports of 300 civilians killed by ISIL and 400 civilians abducted
• Already limited supplies of foods and other commodities are likely to diminish soon putting 200,000 individuals at risk of increased malnutrition
• Those living in GoS controlled areas also face serious protection risks should ISIL take full control of the area
• On 19 January, the Government of Russia announced that they dropped 40 MT of relief supplies from the air.

Meanwhile, several European countries, which feel threatened by the influx of refugees, threaten to deport tens of thousands of asylum-seekers:

• Sweden to deport up to 80,000 asylum-seekers
• Denmark passes controversial bill to take migrants’ valuables
• Germany confiscates more from refugees than Denmark
• Migrants: Norway ‘sending us to death’ in Russia

9.3 Million Syrians Displaced

WAR OF TERROR ON SYRIA  – THIRD ANNIVERSARY
MASS EXODUS
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Syria: Tens of thousands slaughtered, more than 9 million displaced

On the third anniversary of war of terror waged by Saudi Arabia and Israel against the Syrian people, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, said: “three years have passed on this horrible Syrian crisis and that means more displaced people to expect. Today we have around 2.6 million Syrians displaced to neighboring countries and more than 6.5 million Syrians displaced inside Syria.”

Guterres expressed his gratitude to the “generosity of the Lebanese and the government of Lebanon,” for hosting most of the displaced Syrian refugees.

He called on the international community to “show more solidarity with Lebanon and provide financial support and share with it the burden because Lebanon cannot be left alone to confront the big challenges in these hard conditions.”

Meantime, Israeli forces continued shelling the Lebanese-Syrian border.

Return of Polio

In October 2013, an outbreak of polio was reported in Syria, more than a decade after the disease had been eradicated from the country.

Related Links

• Dead or Wounded in 2014 January 1, 2014
• Syria Terror: Children “Targeted by Snipers” November 24, 2013
• Polio Outbreak in Syria Risks Spreading October 29, 2013
• Drought Driving Syria to Collapse September 11, 2010