I find it quite amazing that we can get on a plane and be in Syria in nine hours or so. A further hour and a half, if flying to Damascus, and you reach the city of Homs.
Homs is, according to Lonely Planet, ‘most welcoming’ .The city has been in existence for over a millennia and according to the tourist guides, it sounds like a charming place to kick back and relax for a couple of days.
This is the Syria that I find relatable. Not Homs now, which has become associated with words such as ‘massacre’ and ‘bloodshed’ as well as with the deaths of journalists Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik.
Aside from the recent deaths, the currently unknown whereabouts of journalists Edith Bouvier, Javier Espinosa and William Daniels and the miraculous escape of Paul Convoy demonstrate that over the last week something in Homs has gone drastically wrong.
So why isn’t there a set way to help journalists escape when the situation gets too dangerous? I find it deeply disturbing that in most cases of warfare, with which journalism is required, the only form of protection they receive is from their own military side.
As of Thursday morning all diplomats will have left Syria, but what is meant to happen if, like in Syria, there is no allied army, or diplomats? The journalists are simply left in the hands of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent which they don’t feel they can trust.
This international crisis begs the question of whether diplomats should be the last ones out of the country when things go wrong. Of course, one response would be that journalists should leave at the first sign of trouble, but this argument is redundant. It is the journalist’s personal choices that makes them stay, while diplomats can be said to have a duty to any of their nationals left in the country when concerning a war zone. It is definitely time to assess what way we, as an international community, should respond to an increasingly common problem. Perhaps alongside the UN Security Council’s upcoming decision on Saturday, they should find a way of negotiating a ‘final escape’ plan for war correspondents.
It is tragic that in many respects we do not seem to take the situation in Syria for journalists seriously. Maybe it is because the freedom of the press and our rights based societies makes the circumstances in Syria hard to relate to. Regardless of the why, it remains apparent that though they chose their profession and to fight for freedom of speech, they deserve to be better protected.