Syria – Page 10

UN: Syrians largest refugee group after Palestinians

January 7, 2015 by Nasheman

Syrian refugee children sit outside their tent near the hills of Ersal. Al-Akhbar/Marwan Tahtah

Syrians have overtaken Afghans as the largest refugee population aside from Palestinians, fleeing to more than 100 countries to escape war in their homeland, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

At more than 3 million as of mid-2014, Syrians accounted for nearly one in four of the 13 million refugees worldwide being assisted by the UN refugee agency, the highest figure since 1996, it said in a report. Some 5 million Palestinians refugees are cared for by a separate agency, UNRWA.

“As long as the international community continues to fail to find political solutions to existing conflicts and to prevent new ones from starting, we will continue to have to deal with the dramatic humanitarian consequences,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said in a statement.

At least 200,000 people have died and half the Syrian population has been displaced since the conflict began in March 2011 with protests that spiraled into violent clashes between extremist groups and the Syrian army.

Worldwide, an estimated 5.5 million people were forcibly uprooted during the first six months of last year, 1.4 million of them fleeing abroad, the UNHCR said.

The Middle East and North Africa has become the main region of origin of refugees, overtaking the Asia and Pacific region that held the top spot for more than a decade.

Afghan refugees, the biggest group for three decades, have fallen to second place, with 2.6 million hosted by Pakistan and Iran at mid-year, it said. Somalis ranked as the third largest refugee group at 1.1 million.

Syria’s neighbors — Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and Turkey — continue to bear the brunt of the crisis.

Lebanon’s population has grown by nearly 25 percent since the war in Syria began in 2011, with over 1.5 million Syrian refugees sheltered in a country with a population of 4 million, making it the highest per capita concentration of refugees in the world.

“With 257 refugees per 1,000 inhabitants, Lebanon remains the country with the highest refugee density at mid-2014,” UNHCR said, noting that Jordan ranked second.

The refugee influx has put huge pressure on Lebanon’s already scarce resources and poor infrastructure, education and health systems, and has also contributed to rising tensions in a nation vulnerable to security breaches and instability.

Overwhelmed by a massive influx of desperate refugees, Lebanon began imposing unprecedented visa restrictions on Syrians on Monday.

The new rule is the latest in a series of measures taken by Lebanon to stem the influx of Syrians.

In October, Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas said Lebanon was effectively no longer receiving Syrian refugees, with limited exceptions for “humanitarian reasons.”

Meanwhile, Sweden, with 12 refugees per 1,000 inhabitants, is the only industrialized country among major hosts, ranking 10th, it said.

Syrians also formed the largest group of asylum-seekers worldwide during the first half of 2014, lodging 59,600 applications, it said. Germany and Sweden together received 40 percent of these claims, it added.

According to a report by Amnesty in December, wealthy nations have only taken in a “pitiful” number of the millions of refugees uprooted by Syria’s conflict, placing the burden on the country’s ill-equipped neighbors.

“Around 3.8 million refugees from Syria are being hosted in five main countries within the region: Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt,” said Amnesty.

“Only 1.7 percent of this number have been offered sanctuary by the rest of the world,” the rights group added.

Excluding Germany, the European Union as a whole has pledged to take in only 0.17 percent of the refugees now housed in the main host countries around Syria.

“The shortfall… is truly shocking,” said Sherif Elsayed-Ali, Amnesty’s head of refugee and migrants’ rights.

“The complete absence of resettlement pledges from the Gulf is particularly shameful,” he said, adding, “linguistic and religious ties should place the Gulf states at the forefront of those offering safe shelter.”

Iraqis fleeing conflict were the second largest group of asylum-seekers during the period, at 28,900, the report said.

Last year nearly 3,500 migrants perished while trying to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe, the UNHCR says.

(Reuters, Al-Akhbar)

Syria's war 'killed 76,021' in 2014

January 2, 2015 by Nasheman

Monitoring group says nearly half of those killed in the conflict last year were civilians.

A medic stitches the head of a wounded Syrian boy at a makeshift clinic after a mortar reportedly fell in the besieged rebel town of Douma, 13 kilometers (eight miles) northeast of Damascus, on November 11, 2014. AFP/ Abd Doumany

by Al Jazeera

The conflict in Syria killed 76,021 people in 2014, just under half of them civilians, a group monitoring the war has said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Thursday 33,278 civilians were killed last year in the conflict, which started with protests in 2011 and has spiralled into a civil war.

The majority of the deaths were combatants, including nearly 32,747 anti-government fighters and 22,627 government soldiers and militiamen, it said.

The United Nations says around 200,000 people have been killed since 2011.

No group enjoys significant momentum going into 2015 and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said last month he expected the conflict to be long and difficult.

Assad visited a district on the outskirts of Damascus and thanked soldiers fighting “in the face of terrorism”, his office said on Twitter late on Wednesday, posting pictures of the rare trip.

Assad, who is commander in chief, is not frequently pictured in public, though he has visited troops in the past, according to state media.

The presidential website said the latest visit was to Jobar, northeast of Damascus.

“If there was an area of joy which remained in Syria, it is thanks to the victories that you achieved in the face of terrorism,” Assad told troops, according to the Twitter account.

State news agency SANA said he “wished a speedy recovery to the wounded” and praised their sacrifices.

Peace talks

In another development, Russia invited 28 Syrian opposition figures to Moscow for talks later this month, an opposition source told the AFP news agency, in preparation for a dialogue with the regime.

They include the head of the key Syrian National Coalition opposition grouping, Hadi al-Bahra, as well as two former Coalition chiefs, Moaz al-Khatib and Abdel Basset Sida.

The list also includes members of the tolerated domestic opposition, including Hassan Abdel Aazim, Aref Dailia Fateh Jamous and Qadri Jamil, a former deputy prime minister who was sacked in 2013 but has good ties with Russia.

Two successive rounds of UN-brokered talks between the regime and opposition have failed to achieve agreement.

WHO: one million people wounded in Syria as diseases continue to spread

December 20, 2014 by Nasheman

One million people have been wounded during the nearly four-year old Syrian war, and diseases are spreading as regular supplies of medicine fail to reach patients, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Syria representative said.

A plunge in vaccination rates from 90 percent before the war to 52 percent this year and contaminated water has added to the woes, allowing typhoid and hepatitis to spread, Elizabeth Hoff said in an interview late on Thursday.

More than 200,000 people have been killed in Syria’s conflict, which began in March 2011 with popular protests against President Bashar al-Assad and spiraled into a war.

“In Syria, they have a million people injured as a direct result of the war. You can see it in the country when you travel around. You see a lot of amputees,” said Hoff. “This is the biggest problem.”

She said a collapsed health system, where over half of public hospitals are out of service, has meant that treatments for diseases and injuries are irregular.

“What has been a problem is the regularity of supply,” she said. “The (government) approvals are sporadic.”

Hoff said that Assad’s government – which demands to sign off on aid convoys – is still blocking surgical supplies, such as bandages and syringes, from entering rebel-held areas, arguing that the equipment would be used to help insurgents.

Syrian officials could not be reached for comment on Thursday or Friday.

More than 6,500 cases of typhoid were reported this year across Syria and 4,200 cases of measles, the deadliest disease for Syrian children, Hoff said.

There was just one reported case of polio, which can paralyze children within hours, in 2014 following a vaccination drive. However, other new diseases appeared, including myiasis, a tropical disease spread by flies which is also known as screw-worm, with 10 cases seen in the outskirts of Damascus.

Syrian activists in the Eastern Ghouta district of Damascus said that tuberculosis was also spreading due to poor sanitary conditions and a government siege on the area, blocking aid.

The United Nations called on Thursday for more than $8.4 billion to help nearly 18 million people in need in Syria and across the region in 2015.

Hoff said that the WHO delivered more than 13.5 million treatments of life-saving medicines and medical supplies in 2014, up nearly threefold from the year before.

However, Hoff added that “the needs are not possible to believe,” saying that the problems were growing at an even faster pace with poor water access and deepening poverty worsening the health crisis.

A UN refugee agency (UNHCR) report published in mid-November shows that about 7.2 million people have been displaced within Syria, many without food or shelter as winter has started.

The report also estimates that some 3.3 million Syrian refugees live abroad, most of them living in squalid informal camps, exposed to the heat of summer and cold of winter.

(Reuters, Al-Akhbar)

UN agencies appeal for $8.4 million to address Syrian refugee crisis

December 19, 2014 by Nasheman

Displaced Syrian children stand in muddy water after heavy rains in the Bab al-Salama camp for people fleeing the violence in Syria on December 11, 2014, on the border with Turkey. AFP / Baraa al-Halabi

by Al Akhbar

The UN appealed on Thursday for $8.4 billion to provide emergency aid and longer-term help to nearly 18 million people in Syria and across the region hit by the drawn-out conflict.

Meanwhile, the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF appealed for $900 million to help children affected by the war in Syria.

For the first time, the United Nations’ appeal includes funding for life-saving food, shelter and other humanitarian aid, as well as development support, as the bloody war in Syria heads towards a fifth year.

UN agencies said at the appeal launch in Berlin that $2.9 billion (2.4 billion euros) were needed to help 12.2 million people inside Syria in 2015.

A further $5.5 billion is eyed for Syrians who have sought refuge in neighboring countries and for more than a million people in host communities, it said.

The Berlin appeal for Syria is slightly higher than an indicative amount announced in Geneva earlier this month, which did not include funding needs of neighboring countries.

The UN is planning for up to 4.3 million refugees in countries neighboring Syria by the end of 2015, it added.

“For those that think that this is a lot of money, I don’t remember any bailout of any medium-sized bank that has cost less than this,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres told reporters.

He warned that refugees and people displaced inside Syria had exhausted their savings and that host countries were at “breaking point.”

United Nations humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said Syria had slumped from a middle income country to struggling with widespread poverty.

“People affected by conflict need food, shelter, water, medicine and protection. But they also need support in rebuilding their livelihoods, maintaining education and health services and rebuilding fragmented communities,” Amos, UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, said.

“The conflict in Syria is not only destroying people’s lives today but will continue to erode their capacity to cope far into the future if we don’t take a more holistic approach now,” she added.

Germany hosted an international conference on the Syrian refugee crisis in October which vowed to extend long-term financial aid to countries such as Lebanon and Jordan struggling under the influx of millions of Syrian refugees.

“The humanitarian crisis in Syria and the neighboring countries poses a threat to the stability of the whole region,” Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Thursday.

“This is a call to the solidarity of all nations, and my country is willing to do its part,” he added.

UNICEF asks for $900 million for Syrian children

The appeal comes hours after the UNICEF said it needs more than $900 million to help children affected by the war in Syria next year, and appealed to donors for support.

“The Syria crisis represents the biggest threat to children of recent times,” UNICEF’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, Maria Calivis, said ahead of the major UN appeal for Syrian refugees. “By the end of 2015, the lives of over 8.6 million children across the region will have been torn apart by violence and forced displacement.”

Calivis said the agency’s plans for next year include doubling both the number of Syrian children with access to safe water and sanitation, and the number with access to education.

The agency will continue vaccination campaigns against polio, she said, and deliver care including cash grants and winter clothing to the families of some 850,000 children affected by the conflict.

“These commitments – costed at $903 million (732 million euros) – represent the bare minimum,” she said, calling on supporters “to help us make these commitments a reality.”

Earlier in December, UNICEF declared 2014 a devastating year for children with as many as 15 million caught in conflicts in Palestine, Syria, Iraq, South Sudan, Central African Republic, and Ukraine.

A UN panel investigating war crimes in Syria cited in a report in November cases of abductions, rape and other forms of sexual and physical violence against women and children, including the forced recruitment of minors by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The UN report also said that the US-led airstrikes against ISIS in Syria and Iraq “have led to some civilian casualties,” including scores of children.

Syria’s conflict, which evolved from mass demonstrations against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime to a war that has left more than 200,000 dead, has forced more than half of the country’s population to flee their homes.

A UN refugee agency (UNHCR) report published mid November shows that about 13.6 million people have been displaced by conflict in Syria and Iraq, many without food or shelter as winter starts. The 13.6 include 7.2 million displaced within Syria, in addition to the estimated 3.3 million Syrian refugees abroad.

On December 9, the World Food Program (WFP) announced that the UN will resume food aid to Syrian refugees in neighboring countries, following a campaign to raise funds for a halted program offering food vouchers.

The announcement came after a campaign by the WFP seeking funds to cover a $64 million shortfall which had forced the agency to suspend the program at the beginning of December.

Amnesty International announced this month that wealthy nations have only taken in a “pitiful” number of the millions of refugees uprooted by Syria’s conflict, placing the burden on the country’s ill-equipped neighbors.

“Around 3.8 million refugees from Syria are being hosted in five main countries within the region: Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt,” said Amnesty.

“Only 1.7 percent of this number have been offered sanctuary by the rest of the world,” the rights group added.

It is worth noting that the US House of Representatives adopted a $584.2 billion annual defense spending bill on December, which includes emergency funding for military operations against ISIS and training and equipping the so-called “moderate” Syrian rebels. However, it doesn’t include providing any humanitarian assistance to Syrian refugees.

The US annual defense bill could secure WFP’s humanitarian aid for Syrian refugees for roughly 700 years.

(AFP, Al-Akhbar)

The silent deaths of refugees in Ersal: 18 perished in 45 days

December 12, 2014 by Nasheman

Syrian refugee children sit outside their tent near the hills of Ersal. Al-Akhbar/Marwan Tahtah

by Eva Shoufi, Al Akhbar

The security situation in Ersal made everyone forget that there are 80,000 refugees living there in a harsh climate and poor medical conditions. In a month and a half, there has been 18 deaths among refugees in Ersal, including 12 children, that we heard nothing of. These same security conditions had led international organizations to abandon the town in August, leaving behind innocent people dying silently one by one.

Fourteen-year-old Kh. F. – let’s call him Khaled – died on December 9. Before him, F. H. – an 18-day-old infant – died because no one could take her to a hospital outside Ersal. We saw another 17-day-old infant dying. We did not ask her name, her face was enough to call her Malak (Angel). Born in a tent, she died from the cold, as did others. Just this week, four Syrian children died in Ersal.

Eleven refugees, including nine children, have died in Ersal since the beginning of December, joining seven others who died in November. We are discussing here 18 deaths, including 12 children, in a span of one month and a half. Twelve children die and people carry on with their lives as usual, this is a tragedy for humanity even before being a tragedy for the refugees themselves. The number of deaths is likely higher because the figure we have is based only on information from al-Hay’a al-Toubia field hospital in Ersal. This means dozens of children are dying without anyone hearing about them.

There is something strange about the death of these children passing without the uproar we’ve gotten used to, an uproar that in actuality never got us anywhere. But still, having someone scream in the face of this death is necessary, it tells us that there is still a pulse beating in this world. The absence of any noise, however, killed this pulse.

These numbers were announced by Dr. Qassem al-Zein, who heads al-Hay’a al-Toubia facility in Ersal. He said the medical situation in the town is catastrophic, pointing out that this is just the number of deaths at al-Hay’a hospital. Three children died this month from pneumonia caused by the cold weather, he added. What is shocking is that all these deaths are in Ersal and not the hills of Ersal, except one person who came from the hills for treatment at the makeshift hospital.

The hospital report refers to Malak who was born in a tent in the hills of Ersal. She was 17-days-old when she came to the hospital on the morning of December 3, ill from the cold. Her tiny body interceded for her at the checkpoint to get to the hospital. There were no empty incubators available, however, “so the hospital sent her inside Lebanon but al-Laboui checkpoint prevented her parents from crossing so she returned to al-Hay’a hospital with its modest capabilities where she passed away at 2:00 pm.” Her tiny body could not take it anymore. Malak died.

Khaled died on December 9 from acute kidney failure. The other five children died due to birth defects in their skulls and limbs, according to Zein. Serious concerns are raised about the reasons behind these birth defects. Zein noticed that at the beginning of the crisis and the influx of refugees, “we used to see one case of congential disease per month. Today, we see four cases per month.” The doctor is not sure about the reason but he said that “a lot of women were in Syria early on in their pregnancy, that’s why I think these congenital diseases are due to substances used in the shelling.”

The medical situation in Ersal is catastrophic, but it has not spurred international organizations to return to the town to save the lives of innocent refugees. Not that long ago, there was a Hepatitis A outbreak in Ersal and more than 150 refugees were infected due to water contamination. Now, Zein said “the mumps is beginning to spread among children as 24 cases of infection were recorded last month. Bad conditions from the cold weather, malnutrition, lack of hygiene and overcrowding in the camps exacerbate health problems leading to testicular, pancreatic and other infections.”

The union of relief and development organizations working in Ersal said the conduct of the Lebanese army varies depending on the security situation but most of the time, it allows drug shipments to pass after inspecting them. Before the clashes that erupted last August (between the Lebanese army on one hand and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and al-Nusra Front on the other), al-Hay’a hospital was able to procure 90 percent of the drugs it needs. Today, it can barely get 40 percent because of the dangerous commute.

A medical source in the hills of Ersal spoke of the tragic health conditions among the refugees living there. “Some children and women are sick and urgently need to go to Ersal. There are a lot of cases of asthma and bronchitis, not to mention flu and common colds.” There is also a severe shortage of medication among the refugees and one death was recorded during the storm, according to the source.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said it is in constant contact with field hospitals and clinics in Ersal, providing them with drugs and vaccines through its partners. External Relations Assistant at UNHCR in the Bekaa, Lisa Abu Khaled, said the UNHCR transfers critical cases to hospitals that have signed contracts with them, but sometimes parents do not go because the road is dangerous. She refused to acknowledge any deaths except that of a three-year-old girl whose family could not transfer her to the hospital recommended by the UNHCR. The Commission learned of only two cases of the mumps virus. Abu Khaled said there are vaccines for this virus in the Amel Association Clinic in Ersal, as well as in mobile clinics in the town.

UN Reveals Israeli Links With Syrian Rebels

December 9, 2014 by Nasheman

Reports by UN observers in the Golan submitted to 15 members of Security Council detail regular contact between IDF officers and armed Syrian opposition figures at the border.

Israeli soldiers stand near the border with Syria in the occupied Golan Heights as they prepare to evacuate a wounded Syrian let in for medical treatment, September 23, 2014. Photo by Reuters

by Barak Ravid, Haaretz

Reports by UN observers in the Golan Heights over the past 18 months reveal the type and extent of cooperation between Israel and Syrian opposition figures. The reports, submitted to the 15 members of the UN Security Council and available on the UN’s website, detail regular contacts held on the border between IDF officers and soldiers and Syrian rebels.

The observer force, UNDOF, was established in 1974 as part of the separation of forces agreement between Israel and Syria. The agreement set up a buffer zone several kilometers wide. About 1,000 UN observers supervised the implementation of the agreement until 2013, when the Syrian civil war severely reduced the force’s ability to function.

While Croatia and Austria pulled out and Ireland, Fiji and India agreed to send troops, the increase of attacks on UN forces in recent months caused the force to abandon many of its positions along the front and to transfer its command to the Israeli side of the border.

The observers have continued to file reports to New York, which were relatively mundane; but their content changed in March 2013, when Israel started admitting injured Syrians for medical treatment in Safed and Nahariya hospitals. The Syrian ambassador to the UN complained of widespread cooperation between Israel and Syrian rebels, not only treatment of the wounded but also other aid.

Israel at first asserted the injured were civilians reaching the border of their own initiative and without prior coordination because they could not obtain suitable treatment in Syria. Later, as the numbers increased, Israel said it was coordinating with civilians but not opposition groups. However, the reports reveal direct contact between the IDF and armed opposition members.

According to a report from December 3, 2013, a person wounded on September 15 “was taken by armed members of the opposition across the ceasefire line, where he was transferred to a civilian ambulance escorted by an IDF vehicle.” Moreover, from November 9 to 19 the “UNDOF observed at least 10 wounded persons being transferred by armed members of the opposition from the Bravo side across the ceasefire line to IDF.”

Further reports indicated similar incidents. However, cooperation between the IDF and Syrian rebels that was revealed in UN observer reports does not just include transferring the wounded. Observers remarked in the report distributed on June 10 that they identified IDF soldiers on the Israeli side handing over two boxes to armed Syrian opposition members on the Syrian side.

The last report distributed to Security Council members, on December 1, described another meeting between IDF soldiers and Syrian opposition members that two UN representatives witnessed on October 27 some three kilometers east of Moshav Yonatan. The observers said they saw two IDF soldiers on the eastern side of the border fence opening the gate and letting two people enter Israel. The report, contrary to previous ones, did not note that the two exiting Syria were injured or why they entered Israel.

This specific event is of particular interest in light of what happened on the Syrian side of the border in the exact same region. According to the report, UN observers stated that tents were set up about 300 meters from the Israeli position for some 70 families of Syrian deserters. The Syrian army sent a letter of complaint to UNDOF in September, claiming this tent camp was a base for “armed terrorists” crossing the border into Israel. The Syrians also warned that if the UN would not evacuate the tent camp, the Syrian army would view it as a legitimate target.

Rich nations 'failing to help Syria refugees'

December 6, 2014 by Nasheman

Rights group says “pitiful” number taken in by wealthy countries, with burden placed mainly on ill-equipped neighbours.

A baby looks out from the window of a bus after disembarking from a crippled freighter carrying hundreds of refugees trying to migrate to Europe, at the coastal Cretan port of Ierapetra, Nov. 27. AP Photo

by Al Jazeera

Affluent nations have taken in a “pitiful” number of the million of Syrian refugees uprooted by the country’s civil war, placing the burden on Syria’s ill-equipped neighbours, according to Amnesty International.

The London-based rights group, in advance of a December 9 donors’ conference in Geneva, deplored on Friday what it called the shocking failure of rich nations to host refugees.

“Around 3.8 million refugees from Syria are being hosted in five main countries within the region: Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt,” Amnesty International said in the statement.

Highlighting what it referred to as “the pitiful numbers of resettlement places offered by the international community”, the group said that Russia, China and the Gulf Arab states had not offered a single location for resettlement of refugees.

Meanwhile, the European Union as a whole, excluding Germany, has pledged to take in only 0.17 percent of refugees residing in countries bordering Syria.

“The shortfall … is truly shocking,” said Sherif Elsayed-Ali, Amnesty International’s head of refugee and migrants’ rights.

“The complete absence of resettlement pledges from the Gulf is particularly shameful. Linguistic and religious ties should place the Gulf states at the forefront of those offering safe shelter.”

The failure of wealthy nations to share the burden had placed a increasing strain on host countries, which were largely ill-equipped for the influx of people escaping violence in Syria.

Amnesty International said it was calling for the resettlement of five percent of Syria’s refugees by the end of 2015, and an additional five percent the following year.

The plan would accommodate approximately 380,000 refugees identified by the UN as being particularly vulnerable including lone children and torture survivors.

“Countries cannot ease their consciences with cash pay-outs then simply wash their hands of the matter,” Ali said.

“Those with the economic means to do so must play a greater role.”

In addition to those who fled the war-ravaged country as external refugees, the UN says more than seven million Syrians are internally displaced.

The refugees face poverty, illness and growing tensions with host communities in their already-impoverished temporary homes.

Syria’s civil war began in March 2011, escalating into a bloody civil war that has displaced around half the country’s population.

UNHCR: Aid cuts, cold weather to have “devastating impact” on Syrian refugees

December 5, 2014 by Nasheman

Syrian refugees in the northeastern town of Ersal, Lebanon. Photo / Marwan Tahtah

by Al Akhbar

Aid workers fear a major humanitarian crisis for millions of Syrian refugees in the Middle East, especially in Lebanon, after funding gaps forced the United Nations to cut food assistance for 1.7 million people.

Meanwhile, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday that the number of internally displaced Iraqis had surpassed two million in 2014.

The UN’s World Food Program said Monday it needed $64 million (51 million euros) to fund its food voucher program for December alone, and that “many donor commitments remain unfulfilled.”

The announcement came as aid groups struggle to prepare millions of refugees for the impending winter, particularly those living in informal camps in cold, mountainous areas.

“It’s going to be a devastating impact. This couldn’t come at a worse time,” said Ron Redman, regional spokesman for the UN refugee agency UNHCR, “but we’re trying to get everyone prepared for winter and if you look at the conditions particularly in Lebanon in some of these informal settlements, the conditions are already very bad.”

“We’re doing everything we can… to keep their shelters at least warm and as dry as possible. But you can be warm and dry, but if you don’t have food, you’re in big trouble.”

WFP’s food vouchers were helping nearly two million refugees scattered in countries around the Middle East as each registered refugee receives a card that is topped up with money each month.

The amount differs from country to country, but is intended to allow each refugee to buy food equivalent to 2,100 calories per day, but for most of the agency’s recipients, December’s top-up has not arrived.

A nightmare for refugees

Worst-hit in the region is Lebanon, where more than 800,000 of the 1.1 million Syrian refugees in the country were receiving WFP food voucher support.

Lebanon hosts the largest number of refugees from neighboring Syria and has this been the biggest challenge among recipient countries.

From 2011, beginning of the war in Syria, till 2015, the UNHCR budget allocated for the country has increased drastically from $13.7 million to a planned 556.8.

In Jordan, some 450,000 refugees will not benefit from food vouchers this month, though around 90,000 living in the UN’s Zaatari and Azraq camps will continue to receive assistance.

In Turkey and Egypt, there are sufficient funds to provide aid until December 13 but not beyond, said WFP’s Regional Emergency Coordinator Muhannad Hadi.

“It’s going to be a nightmare for refugees,” Hadi told AFP.

“Those people are depending on the WFP to feed them, most of them are totally dependent on us. They have no income.”

Many refugees struggle to make ends meet even with international aid, and in Lebanon and elsewhere they often live in squalid informal camps, exposed to the heat of summer and cold of winter.

Across the region, they also face increasing tension with host communities angry about the strain that the refugee influx has put on sparse local resources.

The lack of food will “potentially cause further tensions, instability and insecurity in the neighboring host countries,” WFP Executive Director Ertharin Cousin said in a statement.

“We are suffering more-and-more, day-by-day. The world is ignoring our misery,” Abu Yaman, a Syrian refugee living in Ramtha in north Jordan, told AFP.

“The Jordanian government helps us, but Jordan is already a poor country and we can’t expect a lot from a country that was already suffering a financial crisis before hosting hundreds of thousands of Syrians,” added the 30-year-old, from the southern Syrian province of Daraa.

Latest in string of cuts

The announcement from WFP is the latest in a series of cuts made by agencies and NGOs assisting more than three million Syrian refugees.

They say funding pledges have not materialized, and “donor fatigue” is beginning to set in, nearly four years after the conflict in Syria began with anti-government protests in March 2011.

Early October, WFP announced it will no longer be able to provide humanitarian aid for those stuck in Syria as well as Syrian refugees bordering the war-torn country.

Last year, UNHCR announced it was cutting some of its aid to more than a quarter of refugees in Lebanon, partly due to funding shortfalls.

The diminishing humanitarian assistance has created bitterness and disappointment among many refugees.

“They want us to go back and die in Syria,” 21-year-old Khaldun Kaddah, who lives in Jordan, said of WFP’s announcement.

“Shame on them… Western countries talk too much about human rights and the truth is that they do not care for our basic rights.”

A UN refugee agency (UNHCR) report published mid November shows that about 13.6 million people, equivalent to the population of London, have been displaced by conflicts in Syria and Iraq, many without food or shelter as winter starts.

The 13.6 million include 7.2 million displaced within Syria – an increase from a long-held UN estimate of 6.5 million, as well as 3.3 million Syrian refugees abroad, 1.9 million displaced in Iraq and 190,000 who have left to seek safety.

The case for Iraqi refugees

According to UNHCR, developments in Iraq have led to a significant increase in registration requests in Lebanon since June 2014.

Although Syrian refugees are the main concern in the country, an estimate of 6,100 Iraqi refugees are also present, forming an 87% of the 8,000 non-Syrian, non-Palestinian refugees.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday that the number of Iraqis internally displaced nationwide to over 2 million in 2014.

Nineveh in northern Iraq has suffered the greatest population loss with more than 940,000 people fleeing the town due to clashes between the Iraqi army and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group, IOM spokesperson Joel Millman told reporters in Geneva.

Iraq’s western province of Anbar has suffered the second largest displacement with more than 540,000 people, Millman said.

ISIS swept through Iraq’s heartland in June .

The Kurdish Regional Government is hosting the majority of the displaced, while the central region of Iraq is hosting around 45 percent of the displaced, he added.

The United States, backed by some Western and Arab allies, launched airstrikes against the group in Iraq in August, expanding operations to targets in Syria a month later.

However, the air campaign, which Washington says aims to degrade ISIS’ military capability, remains the subject of debate, with critics pointing to ISIS’ advances and battlefield successes despite the raids.

(AFP, Anadolu, Al-Akhbar)

'Devastating': Suspension of food assistance threatens 1.7 million Syrians with hunger

December 2, 2014 by Nasheman

‘This couldn’t come at a worse time’

Street art by Syrian refugees in Iraq. Mural reads: “Hope gives wings to humanity.” (Photo: Samantha Robison/ European Commission DG ECHO/flickr/cc)

by Andrea Germanos, Common Dreams

“This couldn’t come at a worse time,” stated UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres.

Guterres’s comment is in response to the UN World Food Programme’s announcement Monday that it was suspending its food assistance to Syrian refugees as a result of a “funding crisis.”

The suspension of the program means that many of the over 1.7 million Syrian refugees in neighboring countries that had depended on the program’s food vouchers to buy food will now go hungry, the WFP states.

The suspension “will endanger the health and safety of these refugees and will potentially cause further tensions, instability and insecurity in the neighboring host countries,” stated WFP Executive Director Ertharin Cousin.

Many of the refugees are in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt, and already faced lack of access to necessary hygiene, clothing, shelter, and more.

With the cold winter season about to hit, these refugees may find themselves further on the brink, the agencies warn.

“Winter is already an extremely difficult period for Syrian refugees, but the suspension of food assistance at this critical juncture is going to be devastating,” Guterres’s statement continued.

The conflict that has gripped the country since 2011 has created over 3 million refugees—roughly half the country’s population. The UN refugee office has called it “the biggest humanitarian emergency of our era.”

As Common Dreams reported last month,

According to [Raed Jarrar, expert on Middle East politics and Policy Impact Coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee], a “real solution” to the refugee crisis does not lie in the “charitable” responses proposed by the UN, but in a long-term political and social response which engages and empowers people who are directly impacted by the violence. “The solutions for the displaced people is not resettlement or to keep them in limbo where they live,” argues Jarrar. “The real solution is to create the conditions at home to allow for a voluntary repatriation and deal with the root causes that displace them. That is the most important thing to focus on with this humanitarian crisis.”

U.S.-led strikes have killed 910 people in Syria: monitor

November 24, 2014 by Nasheman

Thick black smoke rises over an eastern Kobani neighborhood following an air strike on November 8, 2014. CREDIT: REUTERS/YANNIS BEHRAKIS

by Reuters

Beirut: Air strikes by U.S.-led forces in Syria have killed 910 people, including 52 civilians, since the start of the campaign against Islamic State and other fighters two months ago, a group monitoring the conflict said on Saturday.

The majority of the deaths, 785, were Islamic State fighters according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Islamic State, a hard-line offshoot of al Qaeda, has seized land in Syria and neighboring Iraq, where it has also been targeted by U.S.-led strikes since July.

Eight of the civilians killed were children and five were women, the Observatory said. The United States has said it takes reports of civilian casualties seriously and says it has a process to investigate any reports of such deaths.

The Observatory, which gathers its information from a network of contacts on the ground, said 72 members of al Qaeda’s Syria wing Nusra Front were also killed in the air strikes, which started on Sept. 23.

The United States has said it has targeted the “Khorasan Group” in Syria, which it describes as a grouping of al Qaeda veterans under the protection of Nusra Front. Most analysts and activists do not differentiate between the groups in this way.

According to the United Nations, around 200,000 people have been killed in Syria’s conflict, which is in its fourth year.

(Reporting by Sylvia Westall; editing by Susan Thomas)

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