São Paulo – The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, said last Friday (15th) that so far, donor countries have provided only 30% of the total amount requested in order to aid people displaced by the conflict in Syria, and that there are US$ 700 million to go. “There is no way a gap of this magnitude can be filled with current humanitarian budgets,” said Guterres in Beirut, Lebanon, on the day the conflict entered its third year.
He reiterated a request made two days earlier in Amman, Jordan, for governments to send donations to the refugees. According to Guterres, the roughly 1.1 million displaced Syrians are in a grave situation, and should support be denied to them, the situation in the region will become even more volatile.
Guterres noted that many of the refugees seek shelter in Syria’s neighbouring countries, which are not prepared to house them. He cited Lebanon as a case in point. The country has received 350,000 people. “This conflict represents an existential threat to Lebanon,” she said.
Last Thursday (14th), the executive director of the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), Ertharin Cousin, said the organization is facing “big challenges” when it comes to feeding the nearly 2.5 million people affected by the conflict. The figure includes internally displaced people in Syria, and those who fled abroad. She said US$ 156 million will be needed by June in order to feed them all.
Thus far, the WFP has distributed over 1 million food tickets and 500,000 food packets in countries that touch borders with Syria. Over 3 million meals have been served in Jordan’s Zaatari refugee camp.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
