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No relief in sight for Mideast hotspots after catastrophic 2020

Conflict, disease, famine compound crises in Gaza, Yemen, Syria.
Two Palestinian youths on crutches wearing a protective mask due to the Covid-19 pandemic, walk past graffiti depicting a disabled man carrying a national flag, during an event marking the International Day of Persons with Disabilities in Gaza City on December 3, 2020. (Photo by MOHAMMED ABED / AFP) (Photo by MOHAMMED ABED/AFP via Getty Images)

The COVID-19 pandemic has compounded the already incalculable costs of conflict, disease and failing states in parts of the Middle East. Even when a vaccine finally arrives for people in these areas, which will likely be much later than other parts of the region and the globe, the layered effects of disease on top of crisis may be irreparable.

A flurry of recent reports and Al-Monitor articles document the challenges ahead in some of the most difficult parts of the Middle East — Gaza, Yemen, Syria — in language that is about stark and alarming as one can imagine.

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