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13.5 mln people need protection, humanitarian assistance in Syria: OCHA

Xinhua, October 30, 2015 Adjust font size:

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Friday that some 13.5 million people were in need of some sort of protection and humanitarian assistance in Syria.

The figure represents an increase of some 1.2 million people in just 10 months.

According to OCHA, humanitarian access to people in need remains highly constrained. Four and a half million people live in hard-to-reach areas and the UN has been able to reach only a small fraction of those as a result of active conflict, shifting frontlines, bureaucratic hurdles, and conditions imposed by the parties.

Meanwhile, more than 11 million people require health assistance and nearly nine million people are unable to meet their basic food needs.

Some 393,700 people live under siege. So far in 2015, the UN has only been able to reach 3.6 percent of them with health assistance and only 0.5 percent with food per month.

The UN estimated that some 200,000 people live under siege in Deir-ez-Zor city run by the Islamic State. Some 181,200 people are in various locations in eastern Ghutah, as well as Darayya and Zabadani in rural Damascus. Moreover, some 12,500 people are in places run by non-state armed opposition groups and the Nusrah Front in Foah and Kefraya in Idlib.

However, so far this year, only 23 of the 85 convoy requests made by the United Nations have been approved in principle by the Syrian ministry of foreign affairs. Less than half of those approved have been able to actually proceed due to a combination of lack of final security clearances from Syrian authorities, lack of safe passage from non-state armed opposition groups, and insecurity. Endit