The U.N. Makes $8.4 Billion Bid for Victims of Syria’s Conflict
The United Nations said Thursday that it was seeking $8.4 billion to help 18 million victims of the Syrian conflict after it received only half of the funds it asked for this year, the New York Times reports.
The U.N. received only 46 percent of the $2.28 billion it requested in 2014.
For the first time, the request, made at a donors’ meeting in Berlin, includes assistance for neighboring countries, which are buckling under the strain of hosting a massive influx of Syrian refugees.
“Syria’s war is still escalating. And the humanitarian situation is becoming protracted,” said António Guterres, the head of the U.N. refugee agency, in a statement Thursday. “The development aid – for education, public health, public works and jobs – was an acknowledgment that the crisis may last many years, and that it has seriously disrupted the lives of non-Syrians outside the war,” the New York Time reports.
An estimated 3.2 million Syrians have fled to Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey and Jordan, while more than 12 million are displaced inside Syria. The U.N. has predicted that the number of refugees will rise to 4.3 million in 2015. The number of people needing humanitarian assistance has increased by 2.9 million in just 10 months, U.N. officials told donors on Thursday.
“This plan, if fully funded, can help us provide food and medicine for children, shelter families from the cold, and support those who are desperate and traumatized,” Valerie Amos, the U.N. undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, said.
U.S. Continues to Strike Islamic State Targets in Syria, Amid Notable Absence of Coalition Allies
“As U.S. fighter jets pound Islamic State targets in Syria, Washington’s coalition allies appear increasingly absent from the air war,” Reuters reports.
“Nearly 97 percent of strikes in December were carried out by the United States alone,” according to U.S. military data provided to Reuters. The shift occurred from late September, when U.S. allies carried out 38 percent of the strikes; that dropped to around 8 percent in October, according to Reuters’ calculations.
U.S. and Gulf officials cited by Reuters said that the reason for the decline in the pace of the strikes is because there are fewer easy-to-hit fixed targets in Islamic State territory. Arab allies – Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – focused on those relatively easier targets; the U.S. then moved on to conduct the more complicated raids.
In an interview this month, Assad said the U.S.-led coalition strikes had made no difference to the Islamic State inside Syria. Critics have also said the strikes have helped the group gain recruits and support among local residents, arguing that the strikes have indirectly bolstered Assad’s grip on power.
“In total, the United States carried out 488 airstrikes in Syria through to December 15, according to U.S. military data,” Reuters writes.
Recommended Reads:
- MSNBC: Forgotten Faces of Syria’s War
- AP: Syrian War Refugees Born Across the Middle East Risk Statelessness
- Foreign Policy: Rewriting Syria’s War
- IB Times: The Syrian Army is Shrinking, and Assad is Running out of Soldiers
- Reuters: U.S. Led Air Strikes Focus on Islamic State Kobani in Syria
Photo Courtesy of AP Images