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Half of Syrian population in danger: UN

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The United Nations has warned that about 50% of the Syrian population is in urgent need for humanitarian aid, calling on the Security Council to push for ending the conflict in the Middle Eastern country.

“This is a conflict that is affecting every Syrian,” Valerie Amos, Under-Secretary-General for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, said in a statement obtained by OnIslam.net on Tuesday, November 25.

“We have lamented the possibility of a lost generation of Syria’s children: it is now a reality.”

According to the UN relief agency, more than 12.2 million Syrian, including 5 million children, are in urgent need for humanitarian support.

The UN and its partners have been falling short of offering support for nearly half of the Syrian population who has been forced to flee the conflict, Amos said.

Among the 12.2 million Syrian refugees, 7.6 million are internally-displaced while more than 3.2 have fled Syria, with countries in the region and communities hosting refugees bearing an “enormous burden,” Amos stressed.

Besides the deteriorated humanitarian situation, Syria’s economy has shrunk by 40% since the start of the conflict more than 3 years ago, according to the UN relief agency.

With poverty rate of 75%, school attendance has dropped by half and the unemployment rate has climbed to 54%.

Less than 4% of 220,000 people besieged by either the government or the rebels since last February have been released, the agency stated.

At least 191,000 have been killed since the start of the Syrian conflict, the United Nations said last August.

The UK based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said last July that that the deaths include 85,020 civilians, 9,092 children and 5,873 women.

SOHR stated that at least 27,746 of rebel fighters were killed, among them more than 19,000 civilian who joined the armed opposition to fight Assad.

“Bureaucratic Steps”

Deploring the blockade of war-torn Syrian cities, UN relief official Amos called for ending the “bureaucratic steps” and lifting siege that hampers humanitarian supplies into Syria.

“As the situation on the ground becomes more dangerous and difficult it is even more important that humanitarian actors are able to use all tools at their disposal to reach people in need, from within the country and across borders,” Amos said.

Lamenting the critically underfunded humanitarian appeals for Syria and the region, Amos said: “Every day that passes more Syrian children, women and men die.”

“More look to the international community for help and support. We on the humanitarian side will continue to do all we can.”

As the number of Syrians seeking refugee increases, several countries expressed unwillingness to endure this increase.

Countries outside the region have only agreed to receive a total of about 50,000 quota refugees from Syria, less than 2% of the total refugee population.

Facing troubles in their new camps, hundreds of Syrian refugees entered on Tuesday their sixth day of hunger strike in Greece’s Athens to protest against the bad treatment in the European country.

The number of refugees able to flee their country’s civil war fell 88% in October compared with the 2013 monthly average, to 18,453 people from over 150,000, the International Rescue Committee and the Norwegian Refugee Council reported.

With limited international support and huge strains on their economies, the countries neighboring Syria have decreased the number of refugees it allows onto its soil.

The number of children displaced inside Syria has risen to nearly 3 million from 920,000 a year ago.

Meanwhile, UNICEF said the number of child refugees has grown to 1.2 million from 260,000 since last year – 425,000 of them under 5 years old. ONISLAM


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