Refugee populations and internally-displaced persons are increasingly at risk of infection during the growing Covid-19 crisis. Focusing on Syria’s refugee and informal settlement populations, organizations such as the International Rescue Committee have begun to outline and employ a strategy for crisis management among these incredibly at-risk populations. 

Escalating concerns about rapidly-rising case counts, economic shock, and ill-equipped hospital facilities have dominated the majority of front-page coverage of the novel Coronavirus, or Covid-19. Noticeably absent from much of the discussion is a critical locus in dire need of crisis response efforts: refugee camps and settlement populations, especially those that have developed in and around Syria in the nine years of violence, beginning in 2011. 

Even among the ruling classes, the Middle East has been hit incredibly hard by the virus; as many as 150 members of the Saudi royal family are known to have contracted the virus. 

So far, Syria has reported 29 cases of the novel coronavirus, resulting in two fatalities. However, a critical dimension of the rapidly-evolving Covid-19 crisis is the lack of adequate testing resources, even in countries typically looked to as leaders in crisis-management and resilience, such as the United States. Consequently, with so many internally displaced persons and a crippled healthcare system, it is difficult to say exactly how many cases of Coronavirus are actually present in Syria. Given the crowding and scarcity of resources in refugee camps and informal settlements, the ever-growing risk of Covid-19 infection among these communities has been labeled a “death sentence” for refugees. 

Moreover, as of Tuesday, April 14th, President Trump announced a freeze in the $400 million provided yearly to the World Health Organization by Washington. Global health officials are urging the President to reconsider, given the state of the global emergency. The WHO has partnered with the Syrian Ministry of Health in order to provide protective equipment, testing resources, as well as services such as isolation and contact tracing. The majority of recent WHO efforts have been concentrated in Northwest Syria, home to the last opposition stronghold, and as a result, the most violence and internal displacement. 

In a recent interview with Isaac Chotiner of The New Yorker, David Miliband, former Foreign Secretary for the U.K and current President and C.E.O. of the International Rescue Committee, outlined the critical dimensions of crisis response in refugee camps along Syria’s borders and informal settlements concentrated in urban areas. In his interview, Miliband emphasizes the importance of information campaigns designed to reach all corners of at-risk populations, which fight disinformation and spread facts regarding best health practices in the face of the virus. 

Taking notes from failures and successes of the ongoing Ebola crisis, Miliband also extols the importance of trust in crisis response. In order to foster this sense of trust inside camps and settlements, the IRC employs local staffers, and opens its health facilities to members of the population surrounding the refugee camps and informal settlements. By opening the facilities to all members of the local population, the IRC is able to foster cooperation and reduce social strain. Moreover, because the virus cannot be contained, in providing services to all in need to the best of its ability, public health responders such as the IRC are able to ultimately reduce the number infected inside the at-risk refugee camps. 

It is this sense of cooperation which Miliband outlines as another pillar of effective crisis response: both in a cross-organizational sense when considering local hotspots of crisis relief, as well as in a global sense. As Miliband acknowledges, it is not necessarily unreasonable for a nation to prioritize its own citizens, but, put simply, viruses know no borders. As Miliband goes on to say, “To my mind, Covid-19 is a disease of the connected world, where all of us are only as strong as the weakest link in the chain, where the only solution has got to be a universal solution.” It is then only through collaboration, not protectionism, that the risk of widespread infection can be mitigated among refugee communities in and around Syria.