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Aid
Trier, (Germany), April 4, 2017 (dpa/NAN) Christos Stylianides, European commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management on Tuesday called on the International Community to reaffirm their commitment to the people of Syria.
Stylianides made the call at a two-day meeting to discuss humanitarian aid for Syria began in Brussels on Tuesday, attended by representatives of 70 states and international organisations.
Stylianides saidL “It is our moral duty, our responsibility as international community, to reaffirm our commitment to the people of Syria.
“The scale of the suffering requires more action, it requires a common response. This is our main topic today how we can do better in addressing the needs and the challenges.”
Stylianides paid tribute to humanitarian workers who had lost their lives while saving those of others, and spoke of the challenges of delivering aid in Syria.
“Our common mission is clear: to deliver aid to people in need, something so difficult to achieve under these tragic circumstance, because of the massive needs and the challenges we encounter on the ground,” the commissioner said.
“Humanitarian access is at a new low due to continued deliberate obstructions by all parties,” he said.
Stylianides also spoke of the limitations of aid to bring relief to Syria, however.
“There is no humanitarian solution to this crisis. Only a political solution can end the human suffering,” he said.
Topics for discussion at the conference include the implementation of aid worth 12 billion dollars, agreed to at a meeting of donors in London in February 2016.
NAN reports that the UN said that since March 2011, over a quarter of a million Syrians have been killed and over one million have been injured.
The UN added that 4.8 million Syrians have been forced to leave the country, and 6.5 million are internally displaced, making Syria the largest displacement crisis globally.
The world body said by 2016, an estimated 13.5 million people, including six million children, are in need of humanitarian assistance.
Of these 5.47 million people are in hard-to-reach areas, including close to 600,000 people in 18 besieged areas.
According to current figures, 11.5 million Syrians require health care, 13.5 million need protection support and 12.1 million require water and sanitation, while 5.7 million children need education support.
This, include 2.7 million who are out of school in Syria and across the region. About 2.48 million people are food insecure, while more than 1.5 million need shelter and household goods. (dpa/NAN)
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Edited by Celine-Damilola Oyewole/Sadiya Hamza