Labour MSP Anas Sarwar “angry, helpless, broken and lost” by Aleppo

Labour MSP Anas Sarwar - Image credit: Parliament TV

“Humanity is dying before our eyes and the world looks on helpless,” said Anas Sarwar during First Minster’s Questions yesterday.

Describing his feelings about the situation in the Syrian city of Aleppo, the Labour MSP for Glasgow said: “Looking at the scenes from Aleppo, I feel angry, broken, helpless and lost.”

“Angry that this could happen in our world, broken because I can only imagine if that was my children staying awake at night because of the sound of gunfire and explosions, or if it was my boys whose only hope in life was to stay alive.

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“Helpless because I don’t know what I or anyone else in this chamber can do to actually make a meaningful difference, and lost because every option I think of can only mean more bloodshed and violence.

“We need to do something, but I honestly don’t know what that something is.”

The First Minister endorsed his comments and said she shared the sentiments.

“Each and every one of us finds the scenes from Aleppo that we are witnessing on our television screens nightly to be heartbreaking and deeply distressing,” she said.

“In the circumstances, it is very difficult for any of us to say exactly what can and should be done to resolve the situation, but we know that, on this occasion, the world cannot, as it has done so often in the past, continue to stand back while the scenes of slaughter and destruction happen before our eyes.”

As well as endorsing efforts to provide humanitarian aid and evacuation of the wounded, she said there should “absolutely be a determination” to hold anyone guilty of war crimes to account.

Nicola Sturgeon also praised the work being done to support Syrian refuges in Scotland.

She said: “More widely—this does not in any way take away from the horror that we are witnessing in Aleppo—this time last week, after First Minister’s Questions, I visited a group of Syrian refugees who arrived in Edinburgh round about this time last year.

“I saw a number of people still suffering trauma and real anxiety and concern about relatives in other countries and in some cases still in Syria, but I also witnessed what can happen when, as a society, we come together and are determined to act in a humanitarian way, giving refuge and a home to people who need it.

“Let us hope today—as we hope on all days, but particularly as we get so close to Christmas—that we can see a future where the love based on that humanitarian instinct can overcome the horror that we witness all too often.”