February 23, 2016 — Today’s meeting between President Obama and King Abdullah of Jordan to discuss the plight of civilians in southern Syria could not come at a more urgent moment. The increase in fighting and airstrikes in Dara’a governate has left 43,000 Syrians unable to return to their homes, the biggest displacement of people in the south of Syria since the conflict began.
The intensification of the conflict has resulted in a 46 per cent rise in the number of people needing treatment for war wounds at IRC facilities in December and January. Yet despite the increased needs the IRC has been forced by the fighting to close three health centres in Dara’a governate in the past three weeks, including one after it was damaged by an airstrike.
An estimated 167,500 people in the south of Syria are living under siege. Skyrocketing food prices leave people at risk of malnutrition and at its peak the IRC recorded a 1,344% spike in the price of rice sold in the Damascus suburb of Daraya.
The IRC, through its partners, is the largest provider of healthcare in Southern Syria, delivering medicine as well as medical supplies and equipment to more than 50 healthcare centres, including eight health facilities able to provide care to those in most need. In the province of Rural Damascus alone these facilities provide up 25,000 consultations per month. The healthcare also reaches three besieged areas, serving a population of over 200,000 people.
In the north of Syria, the IRC is responding to the needs of some 75,000 people that escaped fighting around Aleppo and are now trapped at the Syrian-Turkish border. In Azaz, the IRC is providing clean drinking water and sanitation at a camp for 5,000 displaced people, as well as distributing hundreds of ‘dignity’ kits for vulnerable women, containing essential basic items such as soap, sanitary towels, blankets, and spare clothes.
The IRC has been delivering vital aid to those affected by the Syria conflict, which enters its sixth year next month, inside Syria and across the region since 2012. In 2015, nearly 2,000 IRC workers helped more than 1 million Syrians inside their country, more than 80% of all Syrians helped by the IRC in the region.