Syria crisis: Fast facts
- 13.5 million people in Syria need humanitarian assistance.1
- 4.3 million Syrians are refugees, and 6.6 million are displaced within Syria; half are children.2
- Most Syrian refugees remain in the Middle East, in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt; slightly more than 10 percent of the refugees have traveled to Europe.3
- Children affected by the Syrian conflict are at risk of becoming ill, malnourished, abused, or exploited. Millions have been forced to quit school.
What’s so urgent now?
Winter is coming: Refugees in settlements have fewer resources than ever before. They need adequate food, warm clothes, shoes, blankets, heaters, and fuel.
In Lebanon alone, aid agencies estimate that 195,000 Syrian families will need assistance to stay warm and dry over the winter.
Despite rain and cold, thousands more refugees attempt sea crossings to reach Europe.
More than 3,200 have perished this year, including Aylan, a little Syrian boy whose photo touched hearts around the world.
Why Syrians are fleeing their homes: Three reasons
- Violence: Since the Syrian civil war began, 320,000 people have been killed, including nearly 12,000 children. About 1.5 million people have been wounded or permanently disabled, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The war has become more deadly since foreign powers joined the conflict.
- Collapsed infrastructure: Within Syria, healthcare, education systems, and other infrastructure have been destroyed; the economy is shattered.
- Children’s safety: Syrian children — the nation’s hope for a better future — have lost loved ones, suffered injuries, missed years of schooling, and witnessed violence and brutality. Warring parties forcibly recruit children to serve as fighters, human shields, and in support roles, according to the U.S. State Department.
What are the refugees’ greatest needs?
Syrians fleeing conflict need all the basics to sustain their lives: food, clothing, health assistance, shelter, and household and hygiene items.
They need reliable supplies of clean water, as well as sanitation facilities.
Children need a safe environment and a chance to play and go to school. Adults need employment options in case of long-term displacement.
As winter comes, refugees need warm clothing, shoes, bedding, heaters, and heating fuel.
Where are the refugees living?
Turkey is hosting more than 1.9 million Syrian refugees. Iraq, facing its own armed conflict, is hosting about 250,000 Syrians.
More than 1.1 million refugees are in Lebanon. Many have taken up residence there in communities’ abandoned buildings, sheds, spare rooms, garages, and in tent settlements on vacant land. Conditions are often crowded and unsanitary. Even so, families struggle to pay rent for these spaces.
About 630,000 refugees have settled in Jordan, mostly with host families or in rented accommodations. About 80,000 live in Za’atari, a camp near the northern border with Syria, and about 23,700 live in another camp, Azraq, where World Vision set up much of the water and sanitation system.
Four risks that children face
- Children are susceptible to malnutrition and diseasesbrought on by poor sanitation, including diarrheal diseases like cholera.
- Many refugee children have to work to support their families. Often they labor in dangerous or demeaning circumstances for little pay.
- Children are more vulnerable to sexual abuse and exploitation in unfamiliar and overcrowded conditions. Without adequate income to support their families and fearful of their daughters being molested, parents — especially single mothers — may opt to arrange marriage for girls, some as young as 13.
- Between 2 million and 3 million Syrian children are not attending school. The U.N. children’s agency says the war reversed 10 years of progress in education for Syrian children. Between 2.1 and 2.4 million school-age children are not attending school. In Syria, 5,000 to 14,000 schools have been damaged, destroyed, or occupied since 2011. The decline in education for Syrian children has been the sharpest and most rapid in the history of the region, according to UNICEF. For refugee families that don’t live in camps, paying rent and other expenses can make it difficult for parents to afford books, uniforms, and tuition fees for their children. In some cases, children must give up school and start work to help provide for their families. In Lebanon, the government has opened public schools to Syrian children, but language barriers, overcrowding, and the cost of transportation keep many refugee children out of school. How is World Vision helping refugees and others affected by the crisis? Since the Syria crisis began in 2011, World Vision has helped more than 2 million people in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq. We also provide aid in Serbia to refugees fleeing to Europe.
- Syria: food aid, health assistance, hygiene support, baby care kits, water and sanitation, shelter repair kits, winterization supplies
- Iraq: food aid, health services, water and sanitation, baby kits, stoves and other winter supplies; for children: education and recreation, programming for life skills, peace building and resilience
- Jordan and Lebanon: personal and household supplies, clean water and sanitation, education and recreation, Child-Friendly Spaces and child protection training for adults, winter kits and psychosocial support for children
- Serbia: basic necessities, including cold-weather gear for refugees traveling to Europe; Child-Friendly Spaces and rest areas for women and babies
Structure of the Lead：
WHO-Syrian residents
WHEN-2015
WHAT-
WHY-Inflammable
WHERE-Tianjin
HOW-Sadness
keywords
massive 巨大的；大規模的
investigation 調查；研究
hazardous 有危險的；碰運氣的
debris 殘骸；碎片
insist 堅決主張；堅持
industry 勤勉；工業
executive 實施的；行政的；有執行權的
http://www.worldvision.org/news-stories-videos/syria-war-refugee-crisis
