One reason to choose Syria is that the situation may be more acute than it is in most other places in the world at the moment.
One reason to choose programmers could be that this is also the industry that the founder is active in, perhaps making it easier to approach potential customers.
Why are Syrian PROGRAMMERS the focus?
It would be just as easy to divide up the population into any other constituent subgroup and select only those for help.
Any of these would also be a valid goal according to the effort being proposed here:
Syrian auto mechanics Syrian bakers Syrian musicians Syrian nurses
You are presupposing that you can ONLY easily help programmers and furthermore, ONLY those Syrians with programing skill SHOULD be helped. Taken to it's logical extension, you end up helping people based on Ethnicity or Religion.
Why not instead focus on trying to help the greatest number of people in the most expedient way possible: by working to END this terrible civil war. That's CERTAINLY possible given the assemblage of talent reading these words.
You're setting your sights FAR TOO LOW.
This is HN, it's only natural to focus on programming. There are many here with the authority to hire programmers, not many people hiring nurses or mechanics. Besides, it's easier to get a visa if you're a programmer, and it's also easier to get remote work (e.g. in case a Syrian can't get a visa to US or EU but can move to Lebanon or Turkey).