Syria: more than 12.3 million children need help, according to United Nations

Some 13,000 Syrian children have died since the start of the conflict in Syria in 2011. Among them, 213 perished “in the first three months” of 2022.

Le Monde with AFP

More than 12.3 million Syrian children need humanitarian assistance, the United Nations (UN), a level never reached since the start of the conflict in 2011 on Sunday, May 8. “Millions of children still live in fear, uncertainty and need in Syria and in neighboring countries,” the regional director of the United Nations Fund for Childhood (UNICEF) said in a press release for the means -Orient and North Africa, Adele Khodr.

According to the latest data from the UN agency, “more than 6.5 million children in Syria need assistance” and “nearly 5.8 million Syrian children in neighboring countries depend on it” also.

“This is the highest figure recorded since the start of the conflict over eleven years ago,” said M Me khodr. “Many families find it difficult to reach both ends,” added the UN official. “The prices of essential products, whose food, skyrockets, partly because of the crisis in Ukraine.”

thirteen thousand children killed or injured since 2011

UNICEF also deplores the drop in international funding, claiming to have received “less than half of the necessary funds this year”. The organization claims to have “an urgent need of $ 20 million [just under 19 million euros] for its cross-border operations, the only means of survival for nearly a million children in the northwest of the Syria “, a region held by the rebels.

Humanitarian aid reaching this region mainly goes through the border between Turkey and Syria under a special UN authorization which allows you to overcome any authorization from the Bashar al-Assad regime.

“The crisis in Syria is far from over,” also recalled UNICEF, which specifies that 13,000 children have been killed or injured since 2011, including 213 “in the first three months “From 2022. About half a million people have perished since the start of the conflict in Syria in 2011, at the origin of the largest population displacement since the Second World War. According to a estimate of Haut- United Nations Commissariat for Refugees (UNHCR) , in March 2021, more than 6.6 million Syrians were refugees around the world. Among them, 5.6 million were welcomed in the neighboring countries of Syria. Also, 6.7 million are still moved to the country, including around 2.5 million children.

/Media reports.