|
‘The situation in Syria is catastrophic, and getting worse by the day’
Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary-General
The number of refugees fleeing the brutal conflict in Syria has passed a million and is still growing. Host communities in Jordan and Lebanon are stretched to saturation point, while desperate families in Syria are having to sleep in shifts because there aren’t enough tents to accommodate them all at night.
Islamic Relief has already provided assistance to 1.1 million Syrians, 800,000 of them inside the country and the rest in Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq. We’re working flat out to meet the huge needs for medical aid, shelter and food – but we need more support to reach more people.
£90 can buy an emergency medical bag
£200 could provide food for 12 people for one month
£400 could provide a family with shelter
£9000 could fully equip a medical centre inside Syria
One in a million
Zohour, 17, is just one of a million Syrians who have taken refuge in neighbouring countries. She arrived in Lebanon with nothing, and has found work on a local farm to help her traumatised family. “I miss my school, I miss my friends,” she told Islamic Relief. “Insha’allah the war will end and we can go back home.”
Islamic Relief’s response
Islamic Relief provided assistance to 1.1 million Syrians in 2012. Our £10 million aid programme included:
- Medical aid for 30 field hospitals and 60 other medical points throughout Syria, including a fleet of 30 ambulances
- Hospital treatment for 18,000 people
- Food parcels, clothes and shoes for 154,000 people
- 76,000 portions of baby milk, 450 tonnes of wheat flour and 200 tonnes of dates
- 27,000 hygiene kits plus toilet and shower units for displaced people’s camp
- 76,000 blankets and 30,000 mattresses.
Inside Syria
Samina Haq, Islamic Relief UK’s Head of Programmes, ventured inside Syria in February to assess the plight of tens of thousands of Syrians languishing in makeshift camps close to the Turkish border.
“We were confronted with total chaos and immense human suffering,” she says. “I met one family that was sharing a tent with 15 other people. Food was in short supply and there was a lack of medical care and inadequate sanitation. It was awful to feel the stress these families were under – and sickening to see how little help had reached them.”
Read Samina's full blog
Jordan and Lebanon
Jehangir Malik, our UK Director, recently visited refugees in the border areas of Lebanon and Jordan. “In Jordan the refugees were receiving family food packs, blankets and dates from Islamic Relief and spoke highly of the work we are doing,” he says.
“But the main Al-Zaatari camp is full to overflowing with 120,000 people and many who have fled the fighting are still living in fear.”
Read Jehangir's full blog
The needs are enormous, the mission continues.
|