US senators urge creation of safe zones in Syria

Bipartisan quartet of senators calls on President Obama to forge areas of refuge from the civil war

By ToI Staff 22 April 2015, 3:09 pm

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People walk past debris next to the Saad Ansari school (background) in the northern city of Aleppo on April 12, 2015, following a reported Syrian regime air strike that killed five children and four other civilians, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. (Photo credit: AFP/AMC/Zein Al-Rifai)

American senators from both sides of the aisle called on President Barack Obama on Tuesday to create humanitarian safe zones in Syria amid international concern over the suffering of millions of refugees displaced by the country’s four-year-old civil war, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

“The staggering human displacement, killing and destruction are an affront to the civilized world and must be stopped,” Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham and Democrats Richard Durbin and Tim Kaine wrote to Obama in a letter that reached Reuters.

The war in Syria has killed more than 220,000 people and displaced millions more.

The senators called for the US to establish one or more safe zones, with “necessary enforcement mechanisms” including air power, and suggested that Turkey secure the border area around the safe zones.

They also asked the Obama administration to update lawmakers on efforts to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Syria, including efforts to create and enforce such safe zones together with American allies.

The senators also expressed their disappointment that the US, which has admitted fewer than 800 Syrian refugees throughout the fighting, had not taken in more.