SYRIA - UN and international community have failed: 2014 worst year for Syrian civilians » 03/12/2015SYRIA - UNUN and international community have failed: 2014 worst year for Syrian civiliansA report submitted by 21 NGOs accuses the Syrian regime and rebels of targeting civilian homes, hospitals, schools. Members of the Security Council and States have slowed the implementation of UN resolutions in favor of civilians. In 2014, 76 thousand people were killed, about 210 000 in four years. This year donations for aid to the population have reached only 57% of needed funds. London (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The UN Security Council and the international community are responsible for "the most terrible year" yet in the Syrian conflict: the UN has failed to implement its resolutions; the world has failed to respond sufficiently to the humanitarian disaster which is exacing an increasingly higher toll. In 2014 three resolutions had appealed to the warring parties to protect civilians. Next year, the UN needs at least $ 8.4 billion to help more than 11 million Syrian refugees.
Lebanon: Syrians Refugees Facing Deadly Winter with Little Aid For the refugees living in tents in Lebanon, the storm has yet to subside. The fear of death stays with them like the snow that has swept through their tents. Noura, who escaped from the hell of Aleppo to end up in an unofficial camp in Bar Elias, expresses grave concern over the situation. Carrying her baby in her arms to give him warmth, she says: “I only received food aid twice in the past four months. In the Bekaa town of Bar Elias, at an altitude of 900 meters, there are several camps for Syrian refugees, though they are not clearly visible at first because of the white blanket of snow. Now an old concern has resurfaced: frost. According to figures provided by the Ministry of Health, 11 people have died as a result of the storm: three Syrians froze in Shebaa and were buried there, four Bangladeshi nationals died in Danniyeh, a Palestinian was found frozen on the sidewalk in Rashaya last Friday, and three Lebanese citizens died from storm-related health complications. Rameh Hamiyeh
Food enters besieged Homs, Syria after local deal: UN In the absence of a nationwide peace deal, relief groups have tried to get localized agreements with fighters on all sides of the conflict to get convoys through to people in battle zones. Food was sent to Waar Thursday, Elisabeth Byrs, a spokeswoman for the U.N.'s World Food Program, told journalists in Geneva. "Following extensive negotiations between parties to the conflict, a first convoy carrying 8,500 family food rations were delivered to the besieged area of Al-Waar," - enough food for about 42,500 people for one month, Byrs said. Two more convoys over the coming days will deliver food to 75,000 people, she added, 30 percent of the estimated quarter of a million people the United Nations says are trapped in besieged areas across Syria. Waar has witnessed an intensification of shelling and heavy clashes which prevented all access for humanitarian deliveries, WFP said in a statement. Waar has been cut off for nearly two years by government forces, opposition activists say.
The 29 Most Iconic Photos of 2014 Protests to progress, deadly warfare to beautiful acts of compassion, frivolous selfies to powerful moments of defiance were all captured on camera year. As 2014 comes to a close, here's a look back at the moments that we'll be remembering for years to come: Syrians flood a refugee camp during the country's bloody civil war. Residents of the besieged Palestinian camp of Yarmouk line up to receive food supplies in Damascus, Syria, in this Jan. 31 photo released by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. The image helped convey the sheer scale of Syria's humanitarian disaster, which has killed more than 200,000 civilians and displaced more than 7 million since 2011. Legal marijuana comes to Colorado. Tyler Williams picks out pot at the 3-D Denver Discrete Dispensary on Jan 1., the day that laws legalizing recreational marijuana went into effect. A vivid timelapse of Independence Square in Kiev captures protests. The selfie seen around the world.
The Syrian Conflict Is Severely Disrupting The Lives Of 5.5 Million Children - BuzzFeed News $163 million to educate Syrian refugees United Nations: The UN envoy for global education called Wednesday for a multimillion-dollar fund to provide education for children in emergencies and urged donors to start with $163 million to educate half a million Syrian children who are refugees in Lebanon. Gordon Brown told a news conference Wednesday that it’s time for decisive action to prevent millions of children from falling through the cracks and losing out on an education. Brown, a former British prime minister, said there have been more than 10,000 attacks on schools during the past five years and 28 million boys and girls are not in school in areas of conflict and emergency. He said the growing education crisis reaches from Iraq to Nigeria and from South Sudan to Pakistan. Brown called for international donors to reach agreement this spring on the new fund. Brown said he hopes that this idea could be expanded to Jordan, Turkey and other countries with large numbers of refugee children.
Assyrians struggle in Lebanon after fleeing Daesh Many members of this ancient Middle Eastern community are leaving the region altogether Image Credit: AFP Beirut: Waiting in an aid line outside Lebanon’s capital Beirut, Assyrian Christian Francie Yaacoub remembers the well-stocked home she left behind in Syria as she fled advancing Daesh terrorists. “We left behind a house full of everything. She is one of hundreds of Assyrian Christians who have arrived in Lebanon in recent weeks after Daesh terrorists stormed their villages in Syria’s northeastern province of Hasakeh. Members of Lebanon’s Assyrian community, many of them related to those who fled Hasakeh, are doing their best to welcome the new refugees, but the displacement has left them traumatised. Francie, in her fifties, now lives in a small house with her son, husband and five other Assyrian refugees. Her family fled their village, Tal Nasri, during a terrifying Daesh bombardment last week. “We left in our pyjamas. “The shells were falling all around us... ‘Great tragedy’
The massive toll of Syria's four-year civil war More than 220,000 people killed. An estimated 4 million refugees. And another 7.6 million displaced from their homes. More than 80 percent of lights are no longer on. The four-year old civil war in Syria has taken a massive toll on the people living in the country and its neighbors. “There have been more killings, more bombings, a massive increase in displacement and a huge increase in the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance,” said Daniel Gorevan, a Syria policy adviser at British charity Oxfam, to Reuters. “The Security Council resolutions have essentially failed in what they set out to do, which was to provide greater protection and assistance to the people inside Syria.” Oxfam was joined by 20 other aid groups in publishing a deeply critical report detailing how the Security Council failed Syria. “We were afraid for our children’s lives so we fled to the caves in the mountains,” says Samah, a mother of six, in the report. Credit: ODI
My visit to a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan revealed unbelievable heartbreak and hope, by movie mogul HARVEY WEINSTEIN Film producer Harvey Weinstein visited Zaatari, a refugee camp home to more than 120,000 Syrians in Jordan Visited the country with his wife Georgina Chapman as part of a storytelling project with the UN Described the resilience of the children living in the refugee camp as both heartbreaking and uplifting By Harvey Weinstein For Mailonline Published: 14:29 GMT, 27 September 2014 | Updated: 17:11 GMT, 27 September 2014 Movie mogul Harvey Weinstein raised eyebrows when he skipped the Cannes premiere of his latest film Grace of Monaco earlier this year. But rather than working on his next film, Mr Weinstein was in Jordan visiting the Zaatari refugee camp, home to more than 120,000 Syrian who have fled their country Here he describes how visiting the camp and talking to the families that call it their home filled him with both hope and heartbreak: There are two Champs-Élysées in the world. Zaatari is a ramshackle city of tents and containers, home to about 120,000 Syrian refugees.
Syrian refugees facing extreme hardship as blizzards hit region Hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees are enduring blizzards, biting winds and freezing rain as the worst winter storm for decades sweeps across the Middle East. Aid agencies are warning of extreme hardship, particularly among families living in flimsy tents. The United Nations has said it is extremely concerned about the plight of refugees. Aid agencies are trying to distribute thermal blankets, heaters, clothing and tarpaulin sheeting but are facing logistical difficulties in some areas due to severe weather conditions. "For the hundreds of thousands of refugees in Lebanon, as well as those in neighbouring countries and the displaced in Syria, a storm like this creates immense additional hardship and suffering," said Amin Awad of the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, in Lebanon. The storm, named Alexa, has brought snow, hail, driving rain and icy winds to the region, with the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon particularly badly hit. Temperatures have also plummeted in Jordan and Turkey this week.
Syrian refugees facing freezing temperatures as blizzards, strong winds buffet Middle East Posted A storm buffeted the Middle East with blizzards, rain and strong winds on Wednesday, raising concerns for Syrian refugees facing freezing temperatures in flimsy shelters. Snowfall and gales in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley destroyed some refugee tents. "There's no firewood, no diesel," said Ali Eshtawi, a refugee from Homs who spoke by phone from a camp near the Syrian border where he said snow had caused three tents to collapse, leaving 19 people without shelter. Snow blocked roads in the Valley, where more than 400,000 Syrian refugees were sheltering. A 35-year-old shepherd and an eight-year-old boy with him died in the storm in a mountainous area near to Syria, Lebanon's National News Agency said. The storm is forecast to last several days, threatening further disruption in Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Jordan, Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which have all been affected. The Norwegian Refugee Council said the assistance was insufficient and could prove fatal for the refugees. Reuters
Snow storm, low temperatures bring misery to Syrian refugees The winter storm that hit the Middle East may have brought surprise, beauty and joy to Israelis and Egyptians — the latter seeing snow for the first time in years. For Syrian refugees living in tents, however, it has brought cold and misery. The United Nations has warned that hundreds of thousands of refugees are now at risk due to the storm, which heralded blizzards and freezing rain. Around 838,000 of the Syrians who fled the civil war now live in refugee camps in Lebanon, where the only thing standing between them and the elements is a thin plastic tent. In Jordan, another 120,000 refugees tried to reinforce their tents after the winds toppled 10 tents on Thursday. Several parts of the Zaatari refugee camp were flooded due to the storm, and some refugees had to be evacuated to safer parts of the camp. The severe weather has also delayed aid shipments from the UN that were meant to fly from Iraq to Syria.
3 Syrian refugees die in worst Middle East storm in decades AMMAN // The worst winter storm in decades swept the Middle East on Wednesday, killing at least three Syrian refugees and piling more misery on the hundreds of thousands of others with scant protection from the biting cold, flooding, high winds and heavy snowfall. A 10 year-old girl who fled the Syrian city of Homs died in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley on Wednesday, an activist said, as a result of the cold weather, and a Syrian man and six-year-old boy were found dead in the Shebaa region of south Lebanon after crossing over the border, officials said. The cold polar front, with wind speeds exceeding 110 kilometres per hour, hit as increasing refugee numbers and funding shortfalls have already affected crucial assistance to Syrians throughout the region. More than 3 million refugees in countries adjoining Syria, and more than 7.6 million people inside the country, have been forced to abandon their homes since an uprising began there nearly four years ago. foreign.desk@thenational.ae