In this article, Juline Beaujouan and Eyas Ghreiz describe some of the challenges for civil society in rebel-held areas of Syria during the Covid-19 pandemic. Originally published in Civil Society Platform for Peacebuilding and Statebuilding blog.
While the COVID-19 pandemic triggered relative military de-escalation in the last stronghold of the opposition armed groups in northwestern Syria, it has posed major challenges to the nature and missions of the civil society operating in the rebel-held areas. This blog describes some of these challenges, building on more than fifteen interviews conducted in June 2020 with activists and members of the Syrian local civil society in the northwest of the country, including Idlib and Aleppo governorates.