23 February 2018•Update: 23 February 2018
By Sadik Kedir Abdu
ANKARA
The UN said on Friday that at least 13 million Syrians are living in need of humanitarian support.
The report also underlined that nearly 3 million people in Syria are locked in areas that are besieged or hard-to-reach.
The UN made an appeal for $194 million to address the need, according to a report on its official website .
The money would be used for shelters, access to safe water, health care, community-led protection services, livelihood opportunities, adequate services in refugee camps, and helping children in refugee camps attend school.
“These interventions are vital to ensuring that Syrians get the life-saving assistance and livelihood support that many desperately need,” said William Lacy Swing, head of the International Organization for Migration, as quoted on the website.
“In addition, over 5.5 million Syrians have taken refuge in five neighboring countries of Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, and Egypt,” the report said.
The statement also stressed that refugee host countries are facing difficulties with unemployment and limited resources to serve them.
Some 3.5 million Syrian refugees live in Turkey, more than any country in the world, and Turkey has spent some $30 billion to help the refugees.
Syria has been locked in a devastating civil war since March 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity.
UN officials say hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict.
