The war in Syria has reached the highest levels of destruction that one could think of. The pictures of the east of Aleppo, for example, could be those of a Polish or German city, after the Second World War. The humanitarian corridors for evacuating civilians were very difficult and had huge risks.
Eventually, after many voices called for a ceasefire, including the United Nations Security Council presided over by Spain, a new truce was achieved. The war in Syria with several fronts is very hard for those of us who live a long way away from it to understand: a governmental army with powerful allies that support it, a coalition of opposition forces, armed groups from a new, would-be state. And as a result of it all, an impoverished country, with some of its citizens fleeing, and others, who are unable to do so, scraping together an existence, and with hundreds of thousands of people displaced.
Italy and Greece receive many of the people who have fled the bombing and persecution, by the poorest means and are saved by frigates, some of them Spanish. There are 62 refugee camps in Greece, as 75 people a day, on average, arrive there. Eleonas camp in Athens houses 2,050 people, in their majority Syrians.
It does not seem possible that, in the 21st century, the great powers do not reach a peace agreement. Those that acted in the Second World War have recognised the terrible damage that their actions caused. Seventy-five years on, the United States and Japan have done so. They have not apologised but have said something similar: never again.
The aim, in Syria, is not to occupy other countries — there are no aircraft carriers to sink, no atomic bombs being dropped, but the disaster of a five-year war will have consequences, as well, for decades and decades. As we have always maintained that peace was essential if this humanitarian catastrophe were to be put to an end, we welcome the ceasefire and hope that peace is achieved.
People seeking refuge arrive in prosperous Europe, as did the 198 people who arrived in Spain a few days ago. This time the common European policy for taking in refugees, which we are appealing for so much, looks as if it may work.
