70 pct of Syrians need aid as war enters 14th year

DAMASCUS

A vast majority of people in war-torn Syria do not have still access basic humanitarian supplies as the civil war enters its 14th year, the United Nations has said.

The latest data shows 16.7 million people, 70 percent of the people in Syria, need aid, the highest number since the conflict broke out 13 years ago, U.N. Syria Envoy Geir Otto Pedersen said in a statement.

"We must prioritize peace," Pedersen said. "If we do not do so, the grim downward trends across nearly all indicators in Syria will only continue in the year ahead. The Syrian people deserve better than this."

For years, Syria’s civil war has been a largely frozen conflict, the country effectively carved up into areas controlled by the Damascus government of President Bashar al-Assad and various opposition groups.

But as the conflict entered its 14th year last week, observers say violence has been on the rise again while the world’s attention is mostly focused on other crises, such as Russia’s onslaught on Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

The U.N.-backed body known as the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria said this week that since last October, the country has seen the worst wave of violence since 2020.

David Carden, the U.N.’s Deputy Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syria crisis, said during a recent visit to northwest Syria that the U.N.’s humanitarian response plan for 2023, which had appealed for more than $5 billion, only received 38 percent of the funds sought — the lowest level since the United Nations started issuing the appeals.

“There are 4.2 million people in need in northwest Syria, and 2 million of those are children,” of whom 1 million are not going to school, he said. “This is a lost generation.”

A war monitor said last week that Syria's war has killed more than 507,000 people.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said more than 164,000 civilians, including more than 15,000 women and 25,000 children, have been killed.

Syria's war has displaced 7.2 million people internally while pushing millions more to flee the country.

Almost 7.5 million children in Syria will need humanitarian assistance in 2024, more than at any other time during the conflict, according to the U.N. child welfare agency UNICEF.