January 30, 2020 - Issue: Vol. 166, No. 20 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 2nd Session

[Page H741]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       ATROCITIES IN IDLIB, SYRIA

  (Mr. RASKIN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. RASKIN. Madam Speaker, there is another unfolding humanitarian 
crisis in Syria, this time in Idlib province. Syrian President Bashar 
al-Assad has launched an all-out assault on the province, aided by 
Vladimir Putin's Russian forces.
  More than a quarter of a million people, 80 percent of them women and 
children, have fled their homes to the northern part of Idlib into 
freezing desert and refugee camps, without adequate food, shelter, or 
medical care.
  With the current death toll of the Syrian civil war estimated to 
exceed 500,000, along with six million people internally displaced, 
humanitarian groups are concerned that the siege of Idlib will result 
in the largest humanitarian disaster yet seen in the country.
  This assault is a replay of the siege of Aleppo as the government 
again bombs civilian targets like hospitals, schools, markets and 
people's homes.
  This disaster will only be compounded as a result of Russia vetoing a 
U.N. Security Council resolution allowing cross-border aid to Syrian 
refugees. Although a modified resolution was adopted, cross-border aid 
has been restricted and may come to an end this summer if Russia and 
Syria continue to push for its elimination.
  As U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Kelly Craft said: ``Syrians will 
suffer needlessly as a result of this resolution.''

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