A Syrian refugee rests outside his tent at the Zaatri refugee camp, near the Jordanian border with Syria, on September 11, 2012. (KHALIL MAZRAAWI/AFP/GettyImages)
On January 28th, the United Nations appealed for aid for the millions of victims of Syria’s 22-month-old civil war, both within and outside the country. On Tuesday the 29th, U.S. President Barack Obama authorized another $155 million in aid — an important move, but an insufficient one. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s tenuous grip may be weakening (this week his longtime ally Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev spoke with unprecedented clarity on Assad’s future, warning his days are numbered), but the human casualties of his war continue to mount.
The numbers are sobering: four million people in Syria — nearly one in five — need aid. This doesn’t include the additional 700,000 refugees in need of humanitarian assistance in neighboring Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. The U.N. has only reached 3 percent of its $1.5 billion target so far and hopes to raise the needed funds at a January 30 aid conference in Kuwait.
Lack of electricity, food insecurity and a shortage of fuel supplies are just a few of the major challenges faced by Syrians. Reports indicate that 2.5 million Syrians urgently require food assistance. And an especially harsh winter has compounded the situation, particularly for internally-displaced persons living in shelters.
A recent increase in refugees fleeing Syria further indicates the severity of the humanitarian crisis. According to Andrew Harper, Jordan representative of the UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency, new arrivals are crossing the Jordanian border at about four times the rate anticipated. And what’s worse, over half the refugees leaving Syria are children.
But without more money, the U.N. warns, Syrians can’t be helped. Aid groups on the ground are equally stymied by insecurity and volatility within Syria and by shifting control of regions. Sadly, things are likely to worsen before they improve. Turkey’s refugee camps are full, and Jordan may close its camps if the influx of refugees continues to grow. Some refugees facing horrific living conditions are even debating a return to Syria. Caroline Gluck, a spokesperson for aid agency Oxfam, said the Syrian crisis was “one of the worst we’ve seen in recent times.”
Despite funding pledges from the United States and Britain this weekend, the U.N.’s aid target remains far out of reach. Opposition forces in Syria have further complicated U.N. fundraising efforts by condemning what they regard as an “insane and immoral handout” to the Syrian government. As violence continues in Syria with no visible end, the U.N. may be forced to bank on aid from oil-rich Gulf states. Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have no cash flow problems and could easily provide needed funding.
Without their support (or rapid cash injections from other international donors), an escalating humanitarian crisis that is already spilling over into other Middle East countries may reach staggering proportions, even as a fledgling one grows thousands of miles away in Mali.
