The following is an adaptation of a presentation I gave on April 12, 2014 at the Boston Consortium for Arab Region Studies conference:
Since last writing on this topic in February, the news emanating from
the Syrian refugee crisis has only gotten worse. There are now close to 2.7 million
refugees who have fled the Syrian conflict, the majority of whom have settled
in Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan. There are almost 14 million people who
are in need of aid in the region as a result of the conflict, and funds from
the international community have hardly been forthcoming: the UNHCR’s appeal
for 4.2 billion dollars is only 14% funded, while UNICEF’s 222 million dollar
appeal is less than 12% funded. Without these desperately needed resources, UN
agencies as well as over one hundred other humanitarian agencies can do little
to mitigate the devastating effects of the Syrian conflict on the region.
The effects of the crisis on Syria’s neighbors are becoming more
acute, and more violent. In Lebanon, clashes not only in the north of the country
but also in Beirut have led to scores of casualties and deaths. A Syrian
refugee mother recently set herself on fire in front of a UN building in
Tripoli because she was unable to feed her four children on the small amount that
aid agencies and the government are currently struggling to provide. Lebanon
also passed the “devastating milestone” of one million Syrian refugees this
month, and refugees now make up a quarter of the population, the largest per
capita concentration of refugees in the world.