Dubai – Masaader News
The humanitarian crisis in Syria is reaching new peaks as hundreds of thousands of people flee the escalating fighting in Eastern Ghouta and Afrin, the latest flashpoints in the long-running conflict, United Nations relief agencies said Tuesday.
“In Eastern Ghouta alone, more than 45,000 Syrians have fled their homes in recent days,” Andrej Mahecic, spokesperson of the UN refugee agency, told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland.
In the northern Afrin region, he added, an estimated 104,000 people have been uprooted from their homes by the latest escalation in fighting.
As the conflict in Syria enters its eighth year, the situation unfolding in these flashpoints has become a matter of grave concern for the UN.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said the newly displaced people from east Ghouta are currently sheltering in rural Damascus but the existing accommodation facilities are extremely congested and overcrowded and lack basic sanitation as the needs are growing by the hour. There are also serious health risks.
In addition, hundreds of thousands of civilians are still trapped in east Ghouta and in dire need of aid.
“UNHCR and its partners have been working around the clock to provide life-saving assistance,” Mr. Mahecic said, noting that so far 180,000 core relief items, such as mattresses, high thermal blankets, plastic sheets, winter clothes kits, solar lamps, jerry cans, and kitchen sets, have been delivered.
In the country’s northwest, UNHCR has scaled up its response to the Afrin crisis, delivering 100,000 core relief items in the last two days.
Some 75,000 are sheltering in Tal Rifaat, while another 29,000 have sought safety in Nubol and Zahraa and surrounding villages in northern rural Aleppo. In addition, some 10,000 people are reportedly stranded at Az-Ziyara.
“A UNHCR team was on the ground in Nubol yesterday where they heard stories of their exhausting journey, walking long hours through the mountains,” Mr. Mahecic said.