More than 12.3 million Syrian children need humanitarian assistance, the UN warned on Sunday, a record since the conflict began in 2011.Millions of children still live in fear, uncertainty and need in Syria and neighboring countriessaid UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Adele Khodr, in a statement.
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According to the latest data from the UN agency,more than 6.5 million children in Syria need assistance” and “nearly 5.8 million Syrian children in neighboring countries depend on it“. “This is the highest figure recorded since the start of the conflict more than 11 years ago“, clarified Adele Khodr. “Many families struggle to make ends meetadded the UN official. Prices of essentials, including food, are skyrocketing, in part due to the crisis in Ukraine“.
Urgent need of 20 million dollars
Unicef also deplores a drop in international funding, claiming to have received “less than half of the funds needed this year“. The organization claims to havean urgent need for 20 million dollars (nearly 19 million euros) for its cross-border operations, the only means of survival for nearly a million children in northwestern Syria“, a region held by the rebels.
Humanitarian aid reaching this region mainly passes through the border between Turkey and Syria under special UN authorization which makes it possible to avoid any authorization from the regime of Bashar al-Assad. “The crisis in Syria is far from over“, further recalled UNICEF, indicating that 13,000 children have been killed or injured since 2011, including 213 of them “during the first three monthsof 2022.
About half a million people have died since the start of the conflict in Syria in 2011, causing the largest displacement of people since the Second World War.
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