According to UNHCR 5,052,283 have now fled Syria. More than 2.5 million of them fled in 2014 alone. During the course of 2014, an average of more than 98 people fled every day. In 2015 more than 1.1 million Syrians fled the country, an average of more than 7,130 per day. Children now make up 47.5% of the refugee population, meaning there are an estimated 2,399,834 refugee children in the region.
OUR RESPONSE
Save the Children has worked in the Middle East for decades. Since July 2012 we have been running an ambitious emergency response to the growing crisis in the region aiming to raise USD 369,000,000 for our humanitarian interventions in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt and Syria. Our response is 89% funded to date.
To date we have reached 4,450,013 people in Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt and Syria, including approx. 2,865,464 children.
With the needs growing every day in in Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt and Syria. more funding is desperately needed.
Save the Children is actively coordinating with governments, UN agencies and other NGOs to respond to the humanitarian crisis.
URGENT NEEDS
Despite diplomatic efforts at the highest level, the humanitarian situation in Syria continues to deteriorate as the conflict escalates. Efforts by the US and Russia to reach a cessation of hostilities as a first step towards bringing an end to the violence, collapsed and the GoS with Russian support launched a full-fledged offensive to retake the opposition controlled Eastern-Aleppo — where a 100,000 children were living — which ended in an evacuation. The majority of people have now been evacuated from East Aleppo but thousands remain. Almost one million people are estimated to live under siege in Syria, half of whom are children. The conflict has been characterized by intense bombardment and attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure by parties to the conflict.
With the conflict now in its sixth year, the number of people inside Syria in desperate need of aid and protection continues to grow and humanitarian access to decrease. Syria's children are facing renewed and growing violence with widespread violations of IHL and IHRL and the increasing use of devastating weapons such as cluster bombs, which are banned under international law, bunker busting bombs as well as chemical weapons. The international community must ensure a clear commitment by the warring parties to uphold their obligations to grant humanitarian access to all areas, with a focus on hard-to-reach and besieged areas, and refrain from attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals and schools.
Host countries are also under immense strain due to the unprecedented scale of the Syrian refugee exodus and risk becoming a crisis of their own, particularly Lebanon. The international community needs to honour the commitments made at the London conference last February and provide sufficient support to Syria's neighbouring countries to keep borders open to those fleeing Syria's violence, ensure every last child has access to quality education, facilitate adults access to livelihoods and guarantee the legal status and protection of refugees.
Donors must further increase support to people affected by the Syrian crisis, specifically prioritizing education and child protection interventions to prevent a lost generation. The international community must take a greater share of the responsibility of supporting refugees from Syria, including by opening their own borders and offering resettlement or other humanitarian solutions to at least 10 per cent of the refugee population by 2016.