This article first appeared on The Media Line.
As world attention has focused on the tide of Syrian refugees trying to reach Europe, aid organizations try to contend with a growing humanitarian crisis inside Syria. According to the United Nations, 7.6 million people have been internally displaced, meaning they have been forced to leave their homes and have moved to a different part within Syria. More than 12 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, almost five million of them in hard to reach or besieged areas.
“Not many aid organizations do work inside Syria because it is quite dangerous,” Buthayna Ahmed of Hand in Hand for Syria, an organization based in the UK told The Media Line. “We have more than 100 employees in Syria, and we are able to distribute aid on behalf of many organizations.”
As the civil war grinds on, and the death toll continues to climb to more than 220,000 with a million wounded, the humanitarian needs continue to increase. The UN says that more than half of all hospitals and medical clinics in Syria have ceased to function. Dozens of Syrians are killed daily in the fighting.
“I am absolutely horrified by the total disregard for civilian life by all parties to this conflict,” the UN’s humanitarian chief Stephen O’Brien said after a recent trip to Damascus and Homs.
Buthayna Ahmed of Hand in Hand said many of the organizations they distribute aid on behalf of, prefer to remain anonymous. They buy the aid in Turkey to save transportation costs from the UK. They, like all aid organizations in Syria, are struggling to keep up.
“We are dealing with one of the worst humanitarian crises in recent history,” she said. “Funds are now drying up because the crisis is so huge. Until now, it has been the responsibility of countries on the borders of Syria but it must now become a global effort.”
The number of refugees who have fled Syria is now over four million. The neighboring states are unable to absorb more refugees and
Helping refugees inside Syria is one way to ensure that this tide of refugees will not become unmanageable. According to the UN, school attendance has dropped by 50 percent and about one-quarter of all schools are destroyed, damaged or being used as shelters. Millions of Syrian children have not been able to attend school for most of the past four years.
Almost ten million people in Syria have food insecurity meaning they do not know where their next meal is coming from. Millions of others live in poverty.
As the fighting continues, internal displacement is increasing. In 2015 alone, one million Syrians have been forced to flee their homes inside Syria, some for the second or third time.
“I ask the members of the international community to step up and provide us with the resources for our essential life-saving and protection work,” the UN’s O’Brien said. “People across Syria are counting on it.”
