#Syria refugee tally tops 1.5 million, UN says

More than 1.5 million Syrians have fled their conflict-ravaged homeland, the UN’s refugee agency said Friday, warning that the real figure could be even higher as the tally only reflected those who register with aid groups.

Dan McNorton, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, told reporters that close to 250,000 Syrians were being registered each month.

“Refugees tell us the increased fighting and changing of control of towns and villages, in particular in conflict areas, results in more and more civilians deciding to leave,” McNorton said.

“Over the past four months we have seen a rapid deterioration when compared to the previous 20 months of this conflict,” he added.

McNorton underlined that the actual number of refugees was likely to be even higher than 1.5 million.

“This is due to concerns that some Syrians have regarding registration,” he said, explaining that rumors circulating among exiles about the supposed security risks of signing up for refugee status put some people off.

He said aid agencies were working to encourage waivers to register in order to be able to receive official help, even as UNHCR struggles to keep up with the rising numbers and needs.

“The increasingly widening gap between the needs and resources available is a growing challenge,” he said.

“UNHCR continues to respond to the emergency needs of those in desperate need inside Syria and neighboring countries,” he added.

Syrians have surged out of their country since March 2011, when a crackdown on protests against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad heralded the start of an armed rebellion.

Numbers ballooned as the conflict morphed into an increasingly sectarian civil war, and the total topped a million in March this year.

Most have fled to neighboring Jordan, where close to 474,000 have been registered by UNHCR or are waiting registration, and to Lebanon, with over 470,000.

Some 347,000 are in Turkey, over 147,000 in Iraq and close to 67,000 in Egypt, according to UNHCR’s latest data.

In addition to the refugees, the United Nations has said that more than 4.25 million Syrians are displaced within their homeland.

That means that, all told, over a quarter of Syria’s pre-war population of 22.5 million have been forced to quit their homes since the conflict began.

The death toll has surpassed 90,000, according to the UN.

AFP - 05/17/2013

U.N. says 5,000 Syrian refugees fleeing each day

Feb 8/13 #Syria

About 5,000 refugees are fleeing Syria each day, seeking safe haven in neighboring countries, the United Nations refugee agency said on Friday.

“This is a full-on crisis,” Adrian Edwards, spokesman of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) told a news briefing in Geneva. “There was a huge increase in January alone, we’re talking about a 25 percent increase in registered refugee numbers over a single month.”

Since the conflict began two years ago, more than 787,000 Syrians have registered as refugees or are awaiting processing in the region, mainly Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and Turkey, he said.

In Syria, water shortages are worsening and supplies are sometimes contaminated, putting children at an increased risk of diseases, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned on Friday.

The agency’s first nationwide assessment revealed that water supplies in areas affected by the conflict are one-third of pre-crisis levels, UNICEF said in a statement.

“It points to a severe disruption of services, damage done to water and sanitation systems, and limited access to basic hygiene, all of which puts children at much greater risk of disease,” UNICEF spokeswoman Marixie Mercado told the briefing.

#Syria 02/03/13 ANA Exclusive European official visits A’azaz camp of Aleppo

29 Jan 2013 Living in a tomb: #Syria’s children hide in Roman ruins from the modern war machine

Syrians old and young have been left sleeping in caves Photo: ITV News/ Sean Swann

ITV News has returned to one of the once dead cities of Syria, abandoned thousands of years ago.

But it has come alive again, as a bolt-hole for families forced to flee the civil war.

Syrians old and young have been left sleeping in caves Credit: ITV News/ Sean Swann

More than two months since our first visit, more children and their parents are taking shelter from the Assad regime, amongst the Roman ruins.

Read: Abandoned 600 AD, re-occupied by Syrian refugees in 2012 AD.

ITV News International Correspondent John Irvine has returned to the caves of Serjilla in the north west of Syria:

The ruins are now home to many refugees hiding from the fighting Credit: ITV News/ Sean Swann

27 Jan 2013 Arriving to fresh blood in #Syria’s Azaz

Basma Atassi

Basma is a journalist covering the Middle East. Before joining Al Jazeera, she was an assistant editor at Carnegie Endowment in Beirut.

Residents said cluster bombs were used in Saturday’s bombardment [Basma Atassi]

Aleppo Province, Syria - Within the span of 30 minutes, around 10 cars crossed into Turkey from Syria in full speed. They did not stop for border control.

The vehicles were transporting people injured in bombardment by fighter jets, which could be seen in the sky from the border.

President Bashar al-Assad’s forces shelled the towns of Manbej, Tal Rifaat and Azaz in Aleppo province on Saturday evening, leaving scores of people dead or injured.

The blood on the ground had not yet dried when Al Jazeera’s team entered al-Sharkiya neighbourhood in Azaz just an hour later. A young man was trying to bury a pool of blood with mud as two cats were coming near it, sniffing. Six people had been wounded in the neighbourhood.

Residents said cluster bombs had cut off a woman’s two legs and left two of her children seriously injured. Shrapnel cut through the father’s body and one of his kidneys was pushed out through the skin, we were told.

The family was among those being rushed to Turkey, just 3km away, for treatment. Locals said they were the relatives of a former member of parliament, and their tribe was considered supportive of the regime.

“Fighter jets do not differentiate between a dissident and a fighter, between a child and an adult, between a fighter and a civilian,” Safa, a resident, told us.

The house of the MP himself, who fled just a week earlier, was damaged. One of the water pipes in the house was shelled and water was running through the cracks of the pipe.

While the whole of Azaz is rebel-controlled, residents say the fighters have no bases or facilities in al-Sharkiya.

It was considered a relatively safe neighbourhood before Saturday’s bombardment. In July, rebels from Azaz overran the military security premises nearby, from which tanks of regime forces had shelled the neighbourhood frequently.

Most of the roughly 400 residents have remained in their homes instead of fleeing.

The Turkish camp for Syrians just three kilometres away has no space for more refugees and the residents say they cannot afford to rent places somewhere else.

“We literally have no place to go. We are stuck here waiting to see who’s next to die,” Safa said.

“We were happy when we heard that patriot missiles have been deployed at the Turkish borders. We thought they were for the protection of the Syrian people. But they weren’t. They were merely for the protection of Turkey,” he said.

“I am telling you, there is no hope for us. Even this report you are writing, it will not bring any change for us.”

25 Jan 2013: U.N. urges #Syria’s neighbors to keep open borders to exodus

(Reuters) - The United Nations on Friday urged Syria’s neighbors to keep open their borders to civilians fleeing the intensifying conflict and said that the refugee exodus into Jordan was “absolutely dramatic”.

More than 30,000 Syrians have arrived in Jordan’s main Zaatri camp this year, including 4,400 on Thursday and another 2,000 overnight, it said. Most were fleeing fighting in the southern area of Deraa, food and fuel shortages and high prices.

Turkey has said that camps are filling up as soon as they are built and officials in Jordan said this week it would keep its borders open but wanted other countries to help it boost its ability to cope with the influx.

“It is just absolutely dramatic the inflow of people that continues into Jordan,” Melissa Fleming, chief spokeswoman of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told a news briefing in Geneva.

Jordan now hosts more than 206,000 Syrians who have registered as refugees or await processing, while the government says that more than 300,000 Syrians are actually in the country.

A further 30,000 Syrians could be preparing to head to Jordan, according to the UNHCR’s latest assessment.

Across the region, 678,540 Syrian refugees had registered or were being processed as of Tuesday, according to UNHCR figures for Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq and North Africa.

“It is fast approaching 700,000,” spokeswoman Sybella Wilkes told Reuters. “It is a challenge on every border the number of people that are arriving and crossing borders every day.”

Fleming said the UNHCR commended the Jordanian, Lebanese and Turkish governments for keeping their borders open and urged them to continue to do so.

Refugees report fighting in Deraa and its suburbs but the UNHCR was not in a position to assess military activities, she said. Water and electricity are only available for intermittent periods in parts of southern Syria.

Some 25,000 to 40,000 Syrians are reported to be massed in northern Syria along Turkey’s border, awaiting entry into the country which has 15 refugee camps and is building a further five, Fleming said.

“They are building camps as fast as they can and they are letting people in as soon as the camps are ready,” she said.

What began as a mostly peaceful movement against President Bashar al-Assad has killed more than 60,000 people in 22 months, devastated the economy and left 2.5 million people inside the country hungry, according to the U.N.

Ted Chaiban, UNICEF director of emergency programs who was in Syria last week, said food, basic medicines and drinkable water were getting harder to find, while families were living 20 to a room with minimal shelter and clothing in cold weather.

09/12/12

#Syrian statistics to help put things in perspective. Each one of these numbers had a life, story, and a soul.

09/12/12

SNN | #Syria | Special Report |

Alhasakah | Refugees Innovate Ways

to Survive

Translation provided by the Syrian Assistance Team!

03/12/12

#Syria Heartbreaking image: A boy who fled from the violence in his village cries as he waits to get water at a displaced camp

Unicef readies winter supplies for #Syria crisis

Nov 25/12

Unicef is urgently mobilizing more than 100,000 children’s clothing kits and around 160,000 blankets, including baby blankets, along with other winter supplies for displaced children in Syria and surrounding countries.

Drawing on its global supply networks, Unicef is sourcing winter supplies where they are available and can be provided at speed.

“Temperatures are falling fast, down to 5 degrees Celsius this week with expected lows around freezing point. We urgently need to get clothing and other essential items to the most vulnerable children, no matter where they are,” said Ettie Higgins, deputy representative, Unicef Syria.

Many Syrian children fled their homes with only summer clothing. Now they are in temporary shelters and in desperate need of warm clothes. Unicef is worried about the impact winter will have on children’s health, including increased risk of respiratory conditions, Higgins said.

Children are already fragile from the ongoing stress associated with displacement and conflict.

Unicef is also procuring clothing kits for some 75,000 vulnerable children up to 15 years old inside Syria. Each kit includes thermal underwear, long trousers, a woolen sweater, socks, woolen gloves and hat, shoes and a winter jacket.

The blankets will be distributed to children and families displaced by the ongoing conflict, the vast majority inside Syria. They include 11,000 baby blankets for infants in Syria. Of these, more than 26,000 pre-positioned blankets, for example, will be leaving Unicef’s humanitarian hub in Dubai in the next week bound for Syria, while 41,000 further blankets are being sourced in Pakistan.

Health supplies that can meet the needs of more than 225,000 people for three months are also on their way to Syria from Unicef’s Copenhagen supply warehouse. Unicef has already readied half a million school bags, each containing stationery supplies, to boost numbers already distributed. Further supplies are being sourced within Syria where possible.

“Sourcing supplies from around the world and getting them into Syria is only half the solution,” said Higgins. “We face enormous challenges on the ground because of the security situation, but with our network of dedicated partners we will do everything we can to ensure that children get the warm clothes and blankets that they urgently need.”

It is estimated that half of the 400,000 Syrian refugees in surrounding countries are children.

In Lebanon, Unicef plans to reach more than 24,000 children with clothing kits and clothing vouchers, along with an initial 10,000 blankets. In Jordan, 78 heated winter tents for use as child friendly spaces and classrooms are to be set up over the next month. Solar panels are being installed at refugee washing centres in both Jordan and Iraq to provide hot water.

#Syria Nov 24/12 Andrew Simmons reports from Atme refugee camp in Syria

#Syria Thousands of Syrian Children May Not Survive the Winter

Nov 23/12 By Christina Chew

With winter arriving soon, some 200,000 Syrian refugee children are at “serious risk.” More than 2 million people have been displaced as the 20 month conflict drags on and the United Nations expects that some 700,000 people will register as refugees by the end of this year. While some families have been able to settle in refugee camps in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, others are struggling in “makeshift conditions” without adequate shelter or clothing against the normal conditions for winter in much of the Middle East — torrential rains and sub-zero temperatures.

Support for the Syrian opposition has grown with the U.K., the European Union, Turkey, Libya and the six member nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council all officially recognizing the coalition of organizations including the Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and other groups within Syria. France had been the first Western country to recognize the Syrian opposition in the previous week. The U.S. — perhaps wary of being drawn more directly into the conflict — has offered support for the Syrian opposition but has yet to recognize it.

Should the government of President Bashar al-Assad collapse, the Cairo-headquartered Syrian opposition says that, for the first six months, $60 billion in aid will be needed to reconstruct the country’s infrastructure and economy, both of which have been been battered in the months of warfare.

More than 38,000 people have been killed since March of 2011, making Syria’s uprising the bloodiest of those of the Arab Spring. Signs of how the civil war in Syria has been spreading unrest throughout the region have been more and more evident. Turkey has asked NATO — and struck a deal — for ground-to-air missiles to protect its border with Syria. Erlier this month, a Syrian mortar shell hit territory in Israel’s north and led to Israel firing back “warning shots.”

France and other European ministers have raised the possibility of lifting an arms ban to supply the rebels with weaponry including anti-aircraft missiles. But Russia, Syria’s long-time ally, has said that doing so would be in violation of international law.

As of this Monday, rebels said they had seized the headquarters of an army battalion in Damascus after four days of fighting. Fom this and other military gains, Michael Weiss writes in Foreign Policy that the insurgents are indeed gaining territory and certainly “more high-grade materiel” from Assad’s regime. It may well be only a matter of time before Assad’s regime falls — but not in time for elderly, sick and young Syrians who have fled their homes.

#Syria U.N. seeks government help for Syrian refugees

Children of Syrian refugees ride on a motorcycle in Masharih Al-Qaa in Bekaa Valley October 17, 2012. (REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir)Nov 23/12 By Olivia Alabaster

BEIRUT: The U.N.’s refugee agency has met with the Social Affairs Ministry to seek authorization to turn abandoned public buildings into collective shelters for the growing number of Syrian refugees in Lebanon.

The matter was described as an “urgent priority” for the body, according to Friday’s edition of the latest weekly report.

There are now 128,841 displaced Syrians in Lebanon, either registered or having embarked upon the process of registration, with nearly 7,000 registered in the last week alone.

Yet there are possibly tens of thousands more unregistered refugees living in the country.

Some 2,450 refugees arrived in Lebanon over the last week, with the majority entering through official border crossings at Masnaa in east Lebanon and the Bekayaa/Aboudieh point in north Lebanon.

However, the flow of refugees across the border at Wadi Khaled was relatively slow this week, the report states. “The main reasons behind this continue to be prohibitive bribes and targeted shootings on the Syrian side hindering access to Lebanon,” it read.

The government’s Higher Relief Committee will soon resume joint registration of refugees, alongside the UNHCR, the report added.

The government announced several weeks ago that it would waive the $200 residency renewal fee for Syrians, but this has yet to be implemented.

The report stated that the “UNHCR continues to follow up with the General Security Office on the previously announced commitments to waive renewal fees and to regularize [the status of] those refugees who crossed through unofficial border crossings.”

After the issue of shelter, ensuring refugees are sufficiently prepared for winter is one of the main concerns of the UNHCR and the local and international organizations working alongside it.

The most noticeable gap in this sector “remains the provision of aid to newly arrived families and Lebanese families returning from Syria to Lebanon.”

Syrian refugees face freezing cold #Syria

Nov 19/12

The international charity Save the Children announced Sunday that Syrian refugees, including 200,000 children, are at considerable risk as winter in the Middle East approaches.

Without adequate shelter, the charity said, refugees will face dire, life-threatening circumstances.

“As winter sets in, families are starting to take increasingly desperate measures to keep warm,” the group wrote. “In the Al Qaem camp in Iraq, children have told us that they haven’t washed for more than two weeks because the water is ice cold.”

Mike Penrose, Save the Children’s Humanitarian Director, said in a press release Sunday:

“We’re seeing thousands of families across the region, unable to pay for proper shelter to protect them from the cold, without even the basics like blankets or bedding to keep them warm when temperatures plummet at night.”

The charity called for “urgent funding” to help supply families for the coming winter.

According to the BBC, there are about 400,000 registered Syrian refugees in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. That number will likely rise as fighting between Syrian rebels and the regime of President Bashar al-Assad continues. The UN said there may be 700,000 refugees by the end of 2012.

About 2.5 million people have been displaced by the fighting.

More #Syria officers, soldiers and families defect to Turkey

16/11/12

(Reuters) - A Syrian general and a dozen other officers defected with their families to Turkey on Friday, Turkey’s state-run news agency reported, following heavy fighting on Turkey’s southeastern border with Syria.

Ankara said on Friday it had “intensified” talks with its NATO allies on steps to shore up security on the 900 km (560 mile) frontier with the 20-month civil war in Syria at stalemate.

State-run Anatolian agency said 53 people had crossed the border - one general, 12 other officers and an unspecified number of soldiers and their families.

They crossed into Turkey’s southern Hatay province and were sent by local authorities to the Apaydin refugee camp, Today’s Zaman newspaper reported on its website.

A foreign ministry official could not immediately confirm the report. It follows the reported defection on November 9 of 26 military officers, including two generals.

With winter setting in, dozens of Syrian military officers are holed up in Turkish camps, along with about 120,000 civilian refugees.

Alarmed by the refugee influx and the instability on its border, Turkey has called for the creation of a buffer zone inside Syria and is in talks with NATO on the possible deployment of Patriot surface-to-air missiles.

Concern in Ankara deepened this week with an air assault by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad on the rebel-held frontier town of Ras al-Ain.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Friday Ankara had stepped up consultations with NATO.

“This week especially we intensified our consultations regarding the security risks on our border,” Davutoglu told Reuters in Addis Ababa, speaking in English.

Turkey says the deployment of Patriot missiles would be a defensive step, but it could also be a prelude to a no-fly zone inside Syria to limit Assad’s air power.

Turkey scrambled fighter jets to the border on Wednesday, the third day of an air assault by Syrian warplanes trying to dislodge rebels in Ras al-Ain. The town was largely quiet on Thursday and Friday.