Over six million Syrian children in need of aid
5 July Yahoo News
More than six million children affected by the Syria conflict
desperately need humanitarian aid, the UN's children's agency said
Friday, with the number in need rising by a third in a year.
UNICEF is warning that despite the spiralling numbers the
organisation may have to consider cutting some vital services because of
a lack of funding.Some 6.6 million children now need help in the region,
the agency says, a figure that has gone up by a third, or about two
million, since June 2013.
That's an astonishing number and it's one that is rising very, very
fast,” UNICEF spokesman Simon Ingram told reporters in Geneva.The
organisation has so far only received 37 percent of the $770 million
(566 million euros) it needs to cover its services until the end of the
year for Syrian children both inside the country and living as refugees
in neighbouring countries.
“There is actually a very real risk that as a result of this funding
crisis and unless the money does come in we will be forced to
discontinue some of the critical services that we are providing,” Ingram
said.UNICEF is especially worried -- given the hot start to the summer
in the region -- that it may soon have to halt water and sanitation
services in Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan, which along with Turkey are
hosting the lions share of the Syrian refugees in the region.Ingram
stressed the potentially dire consequences of such a move in places
where diseases could easily spread.
Of particular concern is polio, with thirty-six cases of the
crippling and potentially fatal disease discovered in Syria this year.
Two cases have been detected in Iraq, according to the UN.Since the
Syria conflict erupted in March 2011 more than 162,000 people have been
killed and millions displaced.In all, 10.9 million Syrians nearly half
of the population of 22 million are in desperate need of humanitarian
aid inside the country, according to UN figures.
A full 5.1 million of them are children.Another 2.9 million Syrian
refugees, half of them children, also rely on emergency assistance in
neighbouring countries to survive, with statistics showing 100,000
people fleeing the violence to join their ranks each month.
With the conflict showing no sign of abating, the UN expects the
number of refugees in the region to rise to 3.6 million by the end of
the year.
Also on Friday, the UN's refugee chief Antonio Guterres presented a
revised plan for addressing the wider Syrian crisis, urging donors to
cough up the rest of the $3.74 billion (2.75 billion euros) needed this
year to help Syrian refugees across Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and
Egypt.So far, only $1.1 billion of the funds have been provided. |