Middle East
Syrian Civil Defence members clear the area of reported airstrikes in Ariha, Idlib province on January 30, 2020. File photo: AFP
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) appealed on Tuesday for $2.6 billion in emergency funding from donors in order to provide much-needed assistance across the Middle East and North Africa.
UNICEF said the emergency deliveries would be distributed to “over 52.7 million children in need” across the conflict-ridden region next year.
“With almost half of the countries in the region living in crisis or undergoing ripple effects of conflicts and wars, children remain the most affected and in massive need of assistance,” said Adele Khodr, UNICEF’s Regional Director in the Middle East and North Africa.
"Year after year, a dire situation gets much worse with many families becoming poorer as they face the impacts of multiple crises," she added.
UNICEF stated that the funding would be provided to children in Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Jordan, Yemen, Sudan, Syria, Syrian refugees in neighboring countries, and Palestine.
“The region is home to some of the world’s longest conflicts. Almost 12 years of war in Syria left more than 6.5 million children dependent on assistance,” a report by UNICEF stated, while Yemen has been labeled as the worst humanitarian crisis in the world by the UN.
A peaceful uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in March of 2011 turned into a full-scale civil war. The government used deadly force to crush the dissent with protests demanding Assad’s resignation erupting nationwide. About 13 million people were uprooted by Syria’s conflict. Around 6.8 million have fled the country while another 6.2 people were internally displaced within Syria, according to UN numbers.
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