The United Nations has launched an appeal for $6.5bn (£4bn) for Syriaand its neighbours to help 16 million people in 2014, many of whom are hungry or homeless victims of a 33-month-old Syrian conflict that has no end in sight.
The Syrian appeal accounted for half of an overall funding plan of $12.9bn to help 52 million people in 17 countries. It was announced on Monday by the UN emergency relief co-ordinator Valerie Amos at a meeting of donor countries in Geneva.
“This is the largest amount we have ever had to request at the start of the year,” she told a news conference, referring to the worldwide appeal. She said the money requested for Syria was the largest UN appeal ever for a single crisis.
“The increasing number of internally displaced people and refugees is generating greater needs across all sectors and straining the capacities of neighbouring countries, with profound regional consequences,” the appeal said of Syria.
The UN sent its first delivery of humanitarian aid to Syria from Iraq on Sunday and said it planned to deliver more food and winter supplies to the mainly Kurdish north-east in the next 12 days.
It is seeking $2.3bn to help 9.3 million people in Syria alone next year, compared with $1.4bn from the 2013 appeal. Of the latter, only 62% has yet been received, UN figures show.
For five neighbouring countries – Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey – the UN is seeking $4.2bn to assist up to 4.1 million Syrian refugees and host communities who will be given food aid, including cash and vouchers.
UN agencies aim to provide food, clean drinking water, shelter, education, health services and polio vaccines to Syrians inside the country and elsewhere.
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) aims to feed 4.25 million people in Syria, where it was only able to reach 3.4 million in November.
“This is the worst humanitarian crisis that we have seen in decades, with every day more vulnerable Syrians pushed into hunger,” said Muhannad Hadi, the WFP’s Syria emergency co-ordinator.
The overall UN appeal for $12.9bn also includes aid to Sudan, South Sudan, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan and the Philippines, Guardian informs.
