U.N. Appeals for $1.5Bn Syria Aid in First Half of 2013
The U.N. appealed Wednesday for $1.5 billion to help Syrians fleeing the fighting, warning that the number of refugees in neighboring countries could double to a million by June.
"The conflict has become increasingly brutal and indiscriminate and has exacted a heavy toll," the U.N.'s humanitarian affairs agency said in a statement.
"The violence in Syria is raging across the country," Radhouane Nouicer, regional humanitarian coordinator for Syria, told reporters in Geneva.
"There are really no more safe areas where people can flee," he added. "The magnitude of this humanitarian crisis is indisputable."
The appeal was to fund activities over the next six months, said Nouicer. They actually needed far more than the $1.5 billion (1.1 billion euros) requested, "but we are being realistic," he added.
For all of 2012, the U.N. had requested just $835 million to help Syrians inside and outside the country, although it received only about $525 million.
"The number of people in need of assistance inside Syria has quadrupled from one million in March 2012 to four million in December," the U.N.'s humanitarian affairs agency, OCHA said.
An estimated two million people had now fled their homes and were still inside the country: they they were in desperate need of food, shelter, water and emergency medical services, it added.
But most of the requested funds for the first half of 2013 were needed to help the growing numbers who had fled the country. The U.N.'s refugee agency was asking for $1.0 billion through the end of June.
By then, the number of refugees registered in Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey and Egypt was expected to have reached around one million, nearly double the 523,631 registered as of December 17, the UNHCR said.
The current number is already seven times higher than in March, when 70,000 Syrians registered for help abroad.
"Since July, Syrian refugees have fled the conflict for neighboring countries at a rate of 2,000 to 3,000 a day," the agency said.
"We are constantly shocked by the horrific stories refugees tell us," UNHCR regional coordinator for Syrian refugees Panos Moumtzis said in a statement
"Their lives are in turmoil. They have lost their homes and family members. By the time they reach the borders, they are exhausted, traumatized and with little or no resources to rely on," he said.
Wednesday's funding request marks the third update of its plan for assistance inside Syria and the fourth update of its plan to help Syrian refugees since the beginning of 2012.
"It is highly unusual for such plans to be revised so often, and it is indicative of the rapid developments on the ground and the dramatically deteriorating humanitarian situation in the country," Nouicer said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights puts the overall death toll from the 21-month uprising at more than 43,000 based on accounts from activists and medics on the ground.
Source: Agence France Presse
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