05 Feb Syria then and now — a primer for Nova Scotians

This is a photo of the al-Kindi hospital in Aleppo, Syria, taken in 2012:

Here is the same hospital photographed in 2013:

The Guardian has published a series of before-and-after photos showing the toll war has taken on the old cities of Syria. Go have a look.

Here is the Old Souk market in Aleppo, which Wikipedia describes as, “the largest covered historic market in the world, with an approximate length of 13 kilometres,” photographed in 2007.

Here’s the Old Souk in 2013:

We need to keep these photos in mind as we consider Canada’s and Nova Scotia’s role in responding to the Syrian refugee crisis.

There’s more. Here’s a drone video showing what war has done to the Syrian city of Homs, once a major industrial centre with about half again the population of Halifax:

According to the Guardian, the War in Syria has killed more than 130,000 people, and displaced four million more. Half are refugees within Syria’s borders; half have fled to neighbouring countries. Across the world today, 60 million people have been forcibly displaced, compared to only 40 million in all of World War II.

Immigrants from Syria and elsewhere hold tremendous potential to help Nova Scotia face the demographic calamity that is steamrollering over our province. We need people, our schools need children, our economy needs entrepreneurs. Displaced people can help us fill all these needs.

If I were Stephen McNeil, I would entreat Justin Trudeau to let Nova Scotia take in all the 25,000 of the war refugees Canada has pledged to accept.

But even if welcoming immigrants were not in our obvious self-interest, the scale of the horror faced by displaced people would demand our help and generosity.