UN: 'Record' amount of aid for Syria crisis still not enough

Despite the huge outpour of aid to help Syrian civilians, the United Nations says more needs to be done to keep refugee aid programs in the region afloat.

|
Raad Adayleh/AP
U.N. humanitarian chief Stephen O'Brien, center, visits with Syrian refugees who fled civil war in their country, in the Zaatari Refugee Camp, near Mafraq, Jordan, Saturday, Sept. 19, 2015. O'Brien said the international community has sent “record amounts’’ of aid to alleviate the fallout from the Syria crisis, but that it’s hard to keep up with rising regional needs. Some 4 million people have fled Syria since 2011, most moving to neighboring countries.

The international community has sent "record amounts" of aid to alleviate the fallout from the Syria crisis, but it's hard to keep up with rising regional needs, the U.N. humanitarian chief said during a tour Saturday of Jordan's largest camp for Syrian refugees.

Growing numbers of increasingly desperate Syrian refugees have been heading to Europe or returning to Syria in recent weeks, in part because underfunded aid agencies had to slash support programs in regional refugee host countries such as Jordan.

Stephen O'Brien, the U.N. undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, defended the global response to the refugee crisis when asked about the aid shortage and chaotic scenes of refugees streaming into Europe.

He said "need has risen so much that even though we are securing record amounts of funding, record amounts of political will and support, nonetheless the (funding) gap has widened" because of protracted conflicts in the region, such as those in Syria, Yemen and South Sudan.

O'Brien did not give specifics on how much funding has increased over previous levels.

The Syria conflict erupted in 2011 as a popular uprising against President Bashar Assad transformed into a brutal civil war. Since then, more than 4 million Syrians have fled their homeland, most settling in neighboring countries, while millions more are displaced inside Syria.

For 2015, aid agencies requested just over $7.4 billion, both for refugees and the internally displaced. So far, they have received $2.8 billion, or 38 percent of the total, the U.N. refugee agency said Saturday.

Refugee aid programs in host countries such as Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt were just 41 percent funded as of September, U.N. officials said.

Aid agencies have been forced to scale back food and cash aid, making it increasingly difficult for refugees to survive. In Jordan, for example, one-third of 630,000 refugees lost all food aid in September. Jordan also bans most refugees from working legally.

Growing numbers of refugees are either heading to Europe or returning to Syria.

About 150 to 200 Syrian refugees leave Jordan and return to Syria every day, about 40 percent of them Zaatari residents and the rest refugees from other parts of Jordan, said Hovig Etyemezian, the U.N. director of the camp.

Zaatari's population has dropped to 79,000, down by 2,000 since the beginning of August, Etyemezian said.

Refugees are tired after years in the host countries and see no hope for the future, he said. The international community "hasn't woken up yet to the need to assist Jordan, the state institutions and the humanitarian agencies, so we can continue serving the refugees here," he added.

He did not know how many leave for Europe, but said it's the main topic among the young people in the camp.

In recent months, Syrian embassies in Jordan and Lebanon have begun issuing passports to large numbers of refugees. With valid passports, refugees can fly to Turkey without a visa and from there connect with smugglers to try to reach Greece, an EU member state, by boat.

From there, many continue their journey across the Balkans in hopes of reaching more prosperous European countries.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to UN: 'Record' amount of aid for Syria crisis still not enough
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2015/0919/UN-Record-amount-of-aid-for-Syria-crisis-still-not-enough
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe