MIDEAST-CRISIS/LEBANON UN-SYRIA REFUGEES UN humanitarian chief says more money needed for Syria

Record ID: 143649

  • Title: MIDEAST-CRISIS/LEBANON UN-SYRIA REFUGEES UN humanitarian chief says more money needed for Syria
  • Date: 17th August 2015
  • Summary: BEKAA VALLEY, LEBANON (AUGUST 17, 2015) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF SYRIAN REFUGEES INFORMAL SETTLEMENT IN BEKAA VALLEY UN VEHICLE ARRIVING AT THE CAMP UNITED NATIONS HUMANITARIAN CHIEF AND EMERGENCY RELIEF COORDINATOR, STEPHEN O'BRIEN, ARRIVING VARIOUS OF REFUGEE CHILDREN O'BRIEN WALKING WITH HUMANITARIAN AID WORKER VARIOUS OF A CHILD STANDING BY ENTRANCE TO TENT BEIRUT, LEBANON
  • Embargoed: 1st September 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Lebanon
  • Country: Lebanon
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVACNHD7MDNX4P5ES3NYTBTYCQEA
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: The United Nation's top humanitarian official said on Monday (August 17) aid for the Syria crisis has fallen short of what donors have pledged and that the needs of Syrian's affected by the crisis are not being met.
    In March, international donors pledged about $3.8 billion to tackle the humanitarian crisis in Syria.
    But O'Brien said the pledges needed to be negotiated into cash flow in a timely manner - and this has not been the case.
    ''There is at the moment, about, give or take, 30 percent funding of the current appeal for what we know to be the necessary humanitarian life-saving protective civilian requirements in Syria today. It is clearly now we are near the end of August, way way below where we need to be in order to have sufficient funding to meet the humanitarian needs of the Syrian people,'' O'Brien said in an interview shortly after he visited refugees in tented settlements in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley.
    Earlier in the day, O'Brien was in Damascus where he told reporters he was ''horrified'' by Syrian government air strikes in a Damascus suburb that killed scores of people.
    The United Nations is seeking to help 18 million people inside Syria and those scattered throughout the region by more than four years of civil war, as well as the countries and communities that are struggling to host the flood of refugees.
    O'Brien, who took over from Valerie Amos a few months ago, said the world needs to do more to help Syrians affected by the war.
    ''There is a lot of humanitarian need in many parts of the world, but Syria today we are faced with the most complex, with the most demanding, with the most protracted and indeed with the most severe dire catastrophic humanitarian requirement, this is the moment,'' he said.
    An estimated quarter of a million people have been killed in the Syrian civil war which started in March 2011 and has splintered the country, driven 10 million people from their homes, and drawn in regional states that support the warring sides.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register