With the UN General Assembly resolution to end attacks on civilians and growing global outcry over the carnage in Aleppo, the world once again is looking for ways to protect Syrians.
Short of a lasting ceasefire, many are once again calling for safe zones: secure territory to protect civilians fleeing from Russian and Syrian regime bombers, ISIL atrocities and rebel infighting.
Those debating the pros and cons of safety zones are missing a point: they are already here.
Along Syria’s borders with Turkey to the north and Jordan to the south, tens of thousands of civilians are huddling along fences and in desert no man’s lands. After Aleppo, they may soon be joined by thousands more.
These Syrians have calculated that the strips of land along the Jordanian and Turkish borders are the safest in Syria.
Any missile strike, any ground incursion by the border areas would be seen as an act of war by both Turkey and Jordan. The borders are a red line and are thus the only areas where Syrian and Russian jets dare not to go.
The only question is whether the international community is willing or able to enforce these de facto safety zones.
The trend began in Rukban, a desert no-man’s land between Jordan and Syria, a stretch of inhabitable desert over 200 kilometres from Palmyra, the nearest settlement. Long an informal crossing for Syrians looking to enter Jordan, Rukban was suddenly closed off in March 2015 as Jordanian authorities became wary of potential ISIL infiltration.
The Rukban settlement grew to thousands, then tens of thousands. Now 75,000 Syrian civilians, mainly women and children, call the makeshift camp home.
Residents say they risked their lives to camp out on the Jordan border for only one reason: safety. They were not pulled to the border by the promise of aid or resettlement, they were pushed there by conflict.
Even Jordanian officials privately admit that Rukban has become a “de facto safety zone.”
The phenomenon emerged on the Turkish border this February when Turkey closed its borders. Thousands of Syrians fleeing Russian bombing in Aleppo came to the Bab Al Salam crossing to enter Turkey. Denied entry, they camped out on the border.
Should civilians be allowed to evacuate Aleppo, tens of thousands more may flee to the Turkish border. This is a cause for alarm. The de facto safe zones are by and large unenforced and unprotected. The Free Syrian Army patrols several of the camps by the Turkish border, while an alliance between the FSA and tribes try to maintain a semblance of law and order in Rukban by Jordan.
But without the protection by air-power, the civilians who have fled to the border remain vulnerable. The concentration of unarmed women and children in open areas is a recipe for disaster.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, has laid out a grand vision for such zones, saying Turkey plans to “build houses and social facilities” for the displaced in a “safe zone in northern Syria”.
The Turkish leader has envisioned a safe zone that encompasses 4,000 sq km.
But recent experience in Rukban and along the Turkish border has proven that enforcing a safety zone comes with risk.
On June 21, an ISIL suicide lorry bombing struck a Jordanian border guard outpost, killing seven Jordanian soldiers. A similar car-bombing targeted an FSA checkpoint near Azaz close to Bab Al Salam camp, killing 20.
In October, another ISIL car bombing targeted an FSA-affiliate by Rukban, killing three and wounding 20.
But the danger in not acting is far greater. As the fight shifts from urban centres to the surrounding countryside, safe zones themselves may become a target.
Russian jets struck a settlement for rebel families just outside of Rukban in July, killing eight.
It is a microscopic example of the type of carnage that would be unleashed if the de facto safe zones became killing zones.
World powers have spent years discussing safety zones, and now they exist.
If they are truly outraged, then now is the time to enforce them.
Taylor Luck is a political analyst and journalist in Amman
