Senior UN official calls for surge in funds to help Syrian refugees, host countries

UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, on Wednesday appealed for a huge increase in financial support to Syrian refugees and the countries hosting them, as a new UN report showed that large numbers of them are slipping deeper into poverty.

The report, entitled "Living in the Shadows," showed that two- thirds of Syrian refugees in Jordan are now living below the national poverty line, and one in six lives in extreme poverty, able to spend only around 1.30 U.S. dollars per day.

"The findings are based on the largest ever survey of refugee living conditions, involving nearly 150,000 individuals," Farhan Haq, the deputy UN spokesman, told reporters here, referring to the report by the UN refugee agency, known as the UNHCR.

"With the Syria crisis about to enter its fifth year, the report found that most refugees are becoming increasingly dependent on humanitarian assistance for survival, with a corresponding decline in living standards," Haq said.

"Almost half of the households visited for the report had no heating, a quarter had unreliable electricity and 20 percent had no functioning lavatory," he said. "The dire situation has been exacerbated by winter storms that swept across the region last week, bringing snow and freezing temperatures and damaging shelters."

The report is the UN agency's latest study on the plight of those displaced by the Syrian conflict, which led to a massive influx of Syrian refugees into neighboring countries including Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon.

In addition, the report noted that rental costs are accounting for more than half of household expenditures, forcing refugee families to share accommodations in order to reduce costs.

Jordan, for instance, has a registered Syrian refugee population of 620,000 with an estimated 84 percent residing outside of refugee camps.

Guterres warned that this places an excessive burden on Jordanian resources and infrastructure and represents "a dramatic pressure in the economy and the society of the country."

Guterres has long lamented that international funding for the many refugee populations scattered across the world is drying up, leaving many of the most vulnerable exposed to the hardships of displacement.

In Jordan, where the UNHCR is making an effort to address the " critical" situation through a monthly cash assistance program targeting 21,000 Syrian families, over 10,000 additional families nonetheless remain unassisted due to lack of funds. Endite