UNHCR urges world access to 100,000 Syrians in 2015/16

 

A Syrian boy at a refugee transit site in Arsal, Lebanon (UNHCR/M. Hofer)

With  no end in sight to the three-year fighting in Syria, the UN refugee agency on February 21 called upon countries around the world to make multi-annual commitments towards a goal of providing resettlement and other forms of admission for an additional 100,000 Syrian refugees in 2015 and 2016.

UNHCR had earlier called upon states to offer resettlement or other forms of admission to 30,000 of the most vulnerable Syrian refugees by the end of 2014. To date, 20 countries have offered more than 18,800 places towards this goal.

There are currently more than 2.4 million refugees registered in the region. In Lebanon there are some 932,000, Jordan has 574,000, Turkey some 613,000, Iraq 223,000 and Egypt has about 134,000 refugees.

"UNHCR remains confident that the 30,000 goal will be met by the end of the year through a significant number of submissions to the United States," spokesman Dan McNorton told journalists in Geneva.

As part of the emergency response, UNHCR is urging states to consider a number of solutions that can provide secure, urgent and effective protection for these people. Such solutions could include resettlement, humanitarian admission or individual sponsorship; programs that enable Syrian relatives to join family members; scholarships for Syrian students in order to prevent a "lost generation" of young people; and medical evacuation for refugees with life-threatening health conditions.

Arsal, Lebanon

More than 10,000 Syrians have fled over the mountains into Lebanon since a fresh offensive on the city of  Yabroud – in Reef Dimashq governorate about 80 km north of Damascus -- and     its outskirts began in mid February. The new arrivals represent a second wave of refugees to escape fighting in the same region of Syria, following an earlier influx in November 2013.

Syrian refugee tents in Arsal (The Daily Star/Hassan Shaaban)

The new refugees are arriving in a town that has already taken in huge numbers in recent months. The population of Arsal, normally 35,000, has now surpassed 83,000 – with far more Syrians now than Lebanese.

Community centers, mosques and other "collective shelters" have long since run out of space. Across the town, a patchwork of blue and white tents and impromptu shelters is filling up any open space. Some new arrivals are living in vans and the backs of trucks. With this new influx, the number of informal tented settlements in the town has climbed from six to more than 30, writes UNHCR’s Andrew Purvis from Arsal.

The latest exodus from Syria began in earnest when bombing intensified on February12.

To avoid shelling, many of those fleeing Yabroud are finding alternative routes over the mountains along rugged mountain tracks still blanketed with snow.

For many of the refugees, the escape to Lebanon follows several years of displacement and deprivation within Syria.

Does Santa exist for Syria’s children?

Despite the freezing cold, children will be children... (via telegraph.co.uk)

Most people, especially children, hope for a White Christmas. It is certainly not the wish of over 1.1 million Syrian children, now scattered across their own country or taking refuge in neighboring Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq.

With Christmas just over a week away, most families are now filling bags of gifts for their children, decorating their homes, putting up Christmas trees and stocking up on food for the festive season.

In the Middle East, and especially in Syria and Palestine, children will not even know it’s that time of year.

In Syria, in particular, where over half of all 2.3 million refugees are children, will this shameful milestone of conflict deliver more than headlines?

Nowhere else to sleep...

Why is it that the human heart and conscience remains blank and cold in the face of the tragedy of these kids? Why are there no more initiatives such "Do They Know It's Christmas?" in 1984 and Live Aid in 1985?

The UN refugee agency UNHCR is stepping up measures to protect the hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees in Lebanon, including 120,000 living in flimsy tents, as they face the onslaught of a massive winter storm in the region dubbed “Alexa.”

"For the hundreds of thousands of refugees in Lebanon, as well as those in neighboring countries and the displaced in Syria, a storm like this creates immense additional hardship and suffering," said Amin Awad, director of UNHCR's Middle East and North Africa Bureau. "With Lebanon's help, we're doing everything we can to get rapid additional help to people who most need it. This is on top of the winter preparations already done over the past months."

A host of other humanitarian agencies are working on the winter response in Lebanon, including the World Food Program, the Norwegian Refugee Council, the International Organization for Migration, Oxfam, Medair, Save the Children, World Vision, Humedica, Mercy Corps, Caritas and Handicap International.

Lebanon is now the largest Syrian refugee-hosting country in the region, with almost 840,000 Syrians either registered as refugees or awaiting registration, according to UNHCR. Unlike other countries neighboring Syria, there are no established refugee camps. Instead people are living in the community in nearly 1,600 different areas.

Before the storm hit last week, UNHCR undertook a research project, conducted over four months, on what life is like for Syrian children in the two countries hosting the highest number of Syrian refugees -- Jordan and Lebanon.

The Future of Syria: Refugee Children in Crisis found that Syrian refugee children face a startling degree of isolation and insecurity. If they aren’t working as breadwinners -- often doing menial labor on farms or in shops -- they are confined to their homes.

Perhaps the statistic we should pay the most attention to, says UNHCR, is: 29 percent of children interviewed said they leave their home once a week or less. Home is often a crammed apartment, a makeshift shelter or a tent.

Too many have been wounded physically, psychologically or both. Some children have been drawn into the war -- their innocence ruthlessly exploited.

A grave consequence of the conflict is that a generation is growing up without a formal education. More than half of all school-aged Syrian children in Jordan and Lebanon are not in school. In Lebanon, it is estimated that some 200,000 school-aged Syrian refugee children could remain out of school at the end of the year.

The Arsal makeshift Syrian refugee camp in northeast Lebanon

Another disturbing symptom of the crisis is the vast number of babies born in exile who do not have birth certificates.

A recent UNHCR survey on birth registration in Lebanon revealed that 77 percent of 781 refugee infants sampled did not have an official birth certificate. Between January and mid-October 2013, only 68 certificates were issued to babies born in Jordan’s Zaatari refugee camp.

How is this allowed to happen? (via yallasouriya.wordpress.com)

Much more needs to be done if a catastrophe is to be averted, says UNHCR, including:

Keep the borders open: For all the problems identified in the report, children have access to protection because countries like Lebanon and Jordan have welcomed them. No effort should be spared in supporting Syria’s neighbors to keep their borders open. Further afield, in the past few months, many adults and children have lost their lives attempting to reach Europe. States must do more to ensure the safety of people attempting to cross water and land borders.

Help the neighbors: The unwavering commitment of neighboring countries to tackle the monumental task of supporting hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugee children must be matched by international solidarity. Overstrained school systems must be built up, health services expanded and local communities reassured that support is available for them too.

Stop recruitment and exploitation of children: Children should never be drawn into conflict. All parties should make every effort to end this practice.

Expand resettlement and humanitarian admissions programs for Syria’s children: Countries beyond Syria’s borders should also offer a home to Syrian refugees. These programs are important lifelines for the most vulnerable, including people who continue to be in danger and families with seriously wounded children. Unaccompanied and separated children are only considered for these programs after a careful examination of their best interests.

Provide alternatives so children do not have to work: We urge individuals and businesses to help fund UNHCR’s financial assistance scheme that targets vulnerable refugee families and call on governments to explore alternative livelihoods opportunities for Syrian refugees.

Prevent statelessness: Lack of a birth certificate or related documentation can increase the risk of statelessness and expose children to trafficking and exploitation. Returning home may be impossible for children without the necessary documentation. Progress is already being made in neighboring countries, but it is vital that host countries continue to improve access to birth registration.

A few of the 1.1 million Syrian refugee children trying to keep warm

Of the 1.1 million Syrian children registered as refugees with UNHCR worldwide, some 75 percent are under the age of 12. Children represent 52 percent of the total Syrian refugee population, which now exceeds 2.2 million. The majority live in Syria’s neighboring countries, with Jordan and Lebanon combined hosting more than 60 percent of all Syrian refugee children. As of 31 October 2013, 291,238 Syrian refugee children were living in Jordan and 385,007 in Lebanon.

The war in Syria has torn families apart, with over 3,700 children in Jordan and Lebanon living without one or both of their parents, or with no adult caregivers at all. By the end of September 2013, UNHCR had registered 2,440 unaccompanied or separated children in Lebanon and 1,320 in Jordan. In some cases the parents have died, been detained, or sent their children into exile alone out of fear for their safety.

UN agencies and partners help to find safe living arrangements for unaccompanied and separated children, reuniting them with their families or finding another family to look after them. Despite living in already crowded conditions, Syrian refugee families continue to open up their homes to relatives or even strangers.

The unrelenting exodus of Syrian refugees to Jordan and Lebanon is having a dramatic impact on these small countries. Lebanon, with a population of a little more than 4 million, has received more than 800,000 Syrian refugees in two years. The economy, essential services and stability of the country are all suffering.

Jordan, one of the most “water poor” nations in the world, with a population of a little over 6 million, is now home to more than 550,000 Syrian refugees. It is also buckling under the pressure on its services, infrastructure and resources.

While many Jordanians and Lebanese display kindness and generosity towards Syrian refugees, tensions between the communities -- and even within refugee communities -- have put refugee children at risk.

Has the world changed so much since the 1980s? Have we become immune to suffering, even that of children?

Maybe Santa doesn't exist after all…

World Refugee Day: Take 1 minute…

A refugee is someone who “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his/her nationality, and is unable to or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country…”

More people around the world are refugees or internally displaced than at any time since 1994, with the crisis in Syria having emerged as a major new factor in global displacement.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) annual Global Trends report released yesterday, ahead of World Refugee Day, shows that as at the end of 2012, more than 45.2 million people were in situations of displacement compared to 42.5 million at the end of 2011.

This includes 15.4 million refugees, 937,000 asylum seekers, and 28.8 million people forced to flee within the borders of their own countries.

The report does not include the rise in those forced from their homes in Syria during the current year. Significant new internal displacement was seen in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Syria.

A full 55% of all refugees listed in UNHCR's report come from just five war-affected countries: Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, Syria and Sudan.

Afghanistan remained the world's biggest source of refugees, a position it has now held for 32 years, with 95% of Afghan refugees located in either Iran or Pakistan.

Somalis were the second biggest group of refugees in 2012, followed by Iraqis. Syrians were the fourth biggest group.

The figures do not, however, reflect the additional one million people who have fled Syria in the last six months.

Syrian refugees children (via www.un.org)

According to the UNHCR report conflict in Syria has "forced 647,000 people to flee mainly to neighboring countries. This was the largest annual exodus by a single refugee group since 1999, when more than 867,000 people fled Kosovo."

The number of internally displaced persons is at the highest level in more than 20 years, with the war in Syria leading to 4.25m Syrians being internally displaced.

The UN says if current trends persist, a further two million people will have left Syria by the end of this year.

It also found that developing countries now hosted 81% of the world's refugees, 11% more than a decade ago.

Children below age 18 make up 46% of all refugees. In addition, a record 21,300 asylum applications submitted during 2012 were from children who were unaccompanied or separated from their parents. This is the highest number of unaccompanied or separated children that UNHCR has recorded.

"These truly are alarming numbers. They reflect individual suffering on a huge scale and they reflect the difficulties of the international community in preventing conflicts and promoting timely solutions for them," said António Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees and head of UNHCR.

The report highlights worrisome trends, including the rate at which people are being forced into situations of displacement. During 2012 some 7.6 million people became newly displaced, 1.1 million as refugees and 6.5 million as internally displaced people. This translates to a new refugee or internally displaced person every 4.1 seconds.

"Each time you blink another person is forced to flee," Guterres said.

Of 10.5 million refugees under UNHCR's mandate -- a further 4.9 million Palestinian refugees fall under the mandate of its sister-agency, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

A refugee will always yearn to return. The key to the abandoned home is often the symbol of that hope.

My uncle, until he died before returning to Palestine, kept the key to his Haifa home hanging next to the front entrance of his Beirut residence. He would bring the key down before Sunday lunch to make sure it wasn’t rusty or anything.

World Refugee Day is held every year on June 20 to recognize the resilience of forcibly displaced people throughout the world.

It was established by the United Nations to honor the courage, strength and determination of women, men and children who are forced to flee their homes under threat of persecution, conflict and violence.

This year, UNHCR continues its award-winning "1" campaign with its first ever personal fundraising. It asks us to Take 1 minute to support a family forced to flee.

On World Refugee Day 2013, the focus is on the impact of conflict on families through the theme of “1 Family Torn Apart by War is Too Many.” The spotlight is also on ways of helping those who are forced to flee to find safety, regain hope and rebuild their lives.

In 1 minute, a family can be torn apart by war, a child can be separated from his or her parents and a lifetime of work can be destroyed.

Yet in 1 minute, the world community can also act -- reuniting a family, protecting a child, providing shelter, UNHCR says.

Kinan's page at UNHCR site

My friend Kinan took “1” minute and set up a page to help on Facebook. He says: “Hi everyone. I've set up a donation page to help support ONE refugee family. Chip in whatever you can. As little as $17 can provide this family basic kitchen equipment so they could have some noms [food]. And a $50 will allow them to sleep nice and warm after they've had their noms. For them to have everything back – food, shelter, tent, etc – we need a total $670. So the little donations will pile up and we can do this!”

It takes 1 minute to lose everything... A Syrian refugee family (via UNHCR)

Often classified unfairly with economic migrants, refugees flee their country not for economic gain but to escape persecution, the risk of imprisonment and threats to their lives. They need a safe haven where they can recover from mental and physical trauma and rebuild their hopes for a better future.

The intolerance that is often at the root of internal displacement and refugee flows is also present in some of the countries refugees flee to. Instead of finding empathy and understanding, they are often met with mistrust or scorn.

The UN General Assembly, on 4 December 2000, adopted resolution 55/76 where it noted that 2001 marked the 50th anniversary of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, and that the Organization of African Unity (OAU) had agreed to have International Refugee Day coincide with Africa Refugee Day on 20 June. The General Assembly therefore decided that 20 June would be celebrated as World Refugee Day.

Ahead of the G8 meeting in Ireland earlier this week, Carolyn Miles, President and CEO of Save the Children, made an appeal to world leaders to save the children of Syria to coincide with World Refugee Day.

“Time is running out for millions of children across Syria,” Miles said. “The G8 leaders must send a strong signal to the world that the appalling humanitarian crisis in the country and region is a global priority. Aid agencies like Save the Children can only reach 10% of people we aim to help inside Syria.

“We urgently need better access; we know that children are being tortured, have little medical help and have witnessed family members being killed in front of them. Families are resorting to digging for food.

“G8 leaders must insist that all parties to the conflict allow full, safe and unhindered humanitarian access to all areas of Syria, including across conflict lines and across borders from neighboring countries. We cannot wait for a negotiated solution before help arrives.”

Becoming a refugee is not a choice that is made easily or willingly. As such, refugees deserve and should be accorded the respect and dignity to rebuild their lives.

What is gone in 1 minute takes a lifetime to rebuild, if at all…

Sewing and cooking for Syria refugees

The tragedy of the Syria war... (photo via Rose Alhomsi or @tweet4peace)

One of the greatest tragedies of the Syria war – other than the hundreds of thousands of Syrians killed, maimed, disappeared, detained and tortured, the economy’s collapse and the destruction of between 60 and 70 percent of the country -- is the growing numbers of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs).

More heartrending is the fact the figures will keep growing.

Already, over 1.6 million people have little prospect of going back to their Syria homes in the foreseeable future.

One way or another, being a refugee will affect them for the rest of their life -- ask any Palestinian, 65 years on…

According to UNHCR, one million Syrians took refuge in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt in the six months since December 2012.

“With little prospect of being able to safely return to their homes in the short term and growing hardship in host countries, Syrians face desperate circumstances. At the same time, the governments of the region hosting Syrian refugees and the humanitarian community face an increasingly challenging and complex humanitarian crisis which, beyond refugees' immediate protection and assistance needs, threatens the balance of the entire region,” UNHCR says.

Apart from the 1.6 million people who fled to neighboring countries, some 4.25 million are believed to be displaced within Syria and many more are affected by the war.

What is so baffling, considering the figures, is the apathy of the key international players, chiefly the United States and the European Union countries.

Based on arrival trends since the beginning of the year, UNHCR estimates the number of Syrian refugees in need of assistance across the region may reach 3.45 million by year-end 2013. They will be hosted in camps and, for the most part, in local communities.

In an effort to grapple with what might become the largest refugee crisis ever, the United Nations is asking for a record-breaking $5.1 billion in humanitarian aid for Syria and neighboring host countries.

Each refugee has a tale of horror to cope and live with forevermore.

With the help of British charity Syria Relief, a group of women in a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan is coping by sewing and cooking in a DIY workshop.

Alarabiya's Rima Maktabi tries to learn from Umm Imad

Each of the women at the workshop is as busy as a bee. Their eyes hide a thousand tales but they only have time for work – all 20 of them embroidering and cooking to support refugee families and their own.

Alarabiya TV anchor Rima Maktabi toured the camp in Jordan and met the women at their improvised workplace.

When they talk, it is mostly about recollections and the loved ones they lost or left behind.

Umm Imad: I simply want to be by my son's side

Umm Imad seems weighed down by her 60 years. She embroiders clothing to support family and relatives. Her son was killed in Syria. After burying him, she fled to Jordan.

“They can place me in a golden castle after losing my son, but that would mean nothing to me,” she tells Maktabi. ‘I simply want to be by his side, that’s all.”

Some of the dishes the women are preparing

The Syrian women in the Alarabiya video cover their faces and hide their fear. Even in Jordan, they feel the need to protect their own identity in order to save from harm relatives who stayed behind in Syria.

Syrian activist Samara talks to Maktabi who models one of the scarves

Syrian activist Samara says, “When we arrived in Jordan we discovered something called mini projects – meaning you use simple tools to produce something. We didn't want to burden our host society.”

UK-based Syria Relief tries to alleviate the Syrian refugee burden. It set up the women’s workshop to raise money from the sale of its output. The money goes to those in need.

Numerically, this is the largest refugee crisis in the history of the modern Middle East.

Zaatari Syrian refugee camp

In Jordan, more than 100,000 Syrians live in the teeming Zaatari refugee camp, set up in July 2012, now the second largest in the world. But the vast majority has settled in cities and towns around the country. Syrian refugees can now make up fully half the population of some northern cities.

As of mid-January 2013, the UN has registered almost 176,000 refugees in Jordan. The Jordanian government estimates 250,000 have entered the country.

In Lebanon, some 510,000 refugees already make up more than 10 percent of the population. Lebanon has elected not to build refugee camps. So the influx is straining the country's decrepit infrastructure and overwhelming its border towns and villages.

Then there is Turkey. Nearly 400,000 refugees fled to government-funded camps early in the Syrian civil war.

According to a study by Salam Kawakibi, a Syrian political scientist based in Paris, there are some five million internally displaced Syrians within their own country. The majority can today be found in or near Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, Deir Ezzor and Idlib.

There are currently almost 70,000 refugees registered with the UNHCR in Iraq. The vast majority reside in the Kurdistan province of Duhok, mostly within Domiz camp -- an autonomous region in the far north of the country.

Syria Relief, which is helping refugees with mini projects, was set up in September 2011 to provide help and support to Syrian families in need, in and outside Syria. 

Syria Relief is a non-political, non-denominational, non-governmental organization, coordinates a number of charitable activities taking place in the UK to provide help and support to Syrian families and individuals in need, in Syria and outside it, irrespective of religion, geographical location, or political persuasion.

The women’s sewing and cooking will certainly help make a difference for some of the refugees around them. But they will be far from the $5.1 billion needed in humanitarian aid.

In a frightening infographic, UNHCR appeals for the $5.1 billion that will help 3.45 million refugees and 6.8 million in need inside Syria -- or a total of 10 million Syrians -- by putting the figure in context. The $5.1 billion apparently is less than

• Brits spend sprucing up their gardens in a year and
• Americans spend on ice cream in 32 days!

Will the world be up to the humanitarian aid challenge or will the Syria war go down in history as the point when humanity lost its meaning?

The Syrian guests in a Turkish shed

Um Maher (left) and Mariam

It is always a difficult choice in times of war: stay and die or flee and become a refugee – at times for life.

The revolution in Syria, now into its third year, has uprooted up to 1.5 million people and internally displaced another four million, making Syrians one of the largest urban-refugee populations in the world.

Mariam made this hard choice.

After losing her husband in the fighting, she was forced to flee, with her eight children in tow, the ceaseless government airstrikes on the Idlib area in northwestern Syria where they lived.

The nine crossed into Turkey on foot and had the good fortune of knocking at the door of a humble farmhouse sitting right on the Syrian-Turkish border.

Um Maher, the Turkish woman farm owner, took pity on them and offered them to stay in the only portion of space available in her livestock shed. 

Alarabiya TV presenter and journalist Rima Maktabi unearthed the tiny farmhouse for a human-interest feature and an on camera chat with Syrian refugee Mariam and her Turkish benefactor Um Maher.

The chicken, the cow, the shed and Rima Maktabi chatting to Um Maher and Mariam

A three-minute video aired this week by Alarabiya TV shows Maktabi, a Lebanese media figure recognized for her coverage of the 2006 Lebanon war, visiting the tiny farmhouse. She gives the livestock shed the once-over, focusing on the section where the woman refugee from Idlib and her brood sleep, cook, eat, wash and bathe, before conversing with Mariam and her eldest son Khaled and with Um Maher.

“We fled the airstrikes. We had no place to hide. We just left carrying nothing,” says Mariam.

“Who helps you now?” Maktabi wonders.

Mariam breaks into tears

“Here? Charitable people,” Mariam replies while her children jump all over her before she breaks into tears.

“When they give us something, we eat. Otherwise we don’t. God looks after us. What can we do?”

Though a shed, they have a “roof” over their head thanks to the big-hearted Um Maher, a Turk who speaks broken Arabic.

Maktabi asks Um Maher if she charges Mariam any rent.

“No, no. Look, they have nothing. How could I charge them rent?” she replies raising her hands and pointing at Mariam and her children. “They’re hungry, God help them! Are we expected to take their soul? They’re hungry. Look, they are all young…”

Um Maher’s shed, cow and chickens are all she owns.

Mariam's eldest son Khaled tends to the cow

Mariam’s eldest son, Khaled, tends the cow and chickens with his sister in way of repaying Um Maher.

“They feed us and we feed them,” he says, adding: “But I miss my country, my home, my school, my relatives and my people.”

Mariam baking bread

Only when do-gooders bring her flour is Mariam able to bake bread in a primitive outdoors mud wood-burning oven.

Um Maher’s welcome to Mariam’s refugee family is all the more touching because she is sharing the little she owns.

Her kindness and generosity is also a testimony to how little help can save lives.

The following is Rima Maktabi's full report on Alarabiya: