Middle East faces refugee ‘catastrophe’, says report

SYRIA and the surrounding region face a deepening humanitarian catastrophe, according to a report published today.

SYRIA and the surrounding region face a deepening humanitarian catastrophe, according to a report published today.

The two-year uprising and civil war have brought the Middle East into a “human displacement tragedy”, says the International Rescue Committee’s Commission on Syrian Refugees.

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“Current assistance levels are drastically insufficient to address existing needs, let alone the barest requirements to respond to a lengthy humanitarian emergency and post-conflict recovery,” the humanitarian organisation says in its report, Syria: A Regional Crisis.

More than 600,000 Syrians have fled to overburdened neighbouring countries, and the United Nations anticipates the figure could soon exceed one million, if the exodus continues at its current pace of about 3,000 refugees a day, the IRC says.

Inside Syria, more than two million civilians are displaced, and four million are in dire need of assistance.

The report says Syrian civilians are struggling to survive in communities besieged by violence, chaos and destruction. Supplies of food, water and electricity have dwindled, sanitation in many areas has halted, yet medical care has become scarce.

Organisations that provide emergency medical services and supplies say the health care
system has been decimated.

Doctors described “a systematic campaign to restrict access to life-saving healthcare through the strategic bombing and forced closure of hospitals and healthcare facilities” and “intimidation, torture and the targeted killing of doctors and other medical staff in retribution for treating the wounded”.

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