Keystone-SDA
The escalation of the conflict in north-west Syria has led nearly 50,000 people to flee in a few days, the UN Office of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Monday. More than half of the displaced are children.
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December 3, 2024 – 01:47
(Keystone-ATS) “As of November 30, more than 48,500 people had been displaced, a sharp increase compared to the 14,000” recorded on November 28, specifies OCHA. Its leader, Tom Fletcher, expressed concern on the social network X about the situation of “tens of thousands of people” fleeing.
Humanitarian operations by the UN and its partners had to be “largely suspended” in certain areas of Aleppo, Idleb and Hama, said Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN chief António Guterres. , noting the impossibility of accessing warehouses where humanitarian aid is stored.
“This has caused serious disruption to the population’s access to vital assistance,” he added. He was also concerned about the worsening health situation, particularly “due to the presence of unburied bodies and the lack of drinking water”.
Regime’s scathing setback
Syria is already experiencing one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, with 16.7 million people in need of humanitarian aid and 7 million displaced, he recalled.
For the first time since the start of the civil war in 2011, the regime has completely lost control of Aleppo, Syria’s second city, a stinging setback inflicted by a coalition of rebel groups dominated by radical Islamists.
The fighting, the first of this magnitude since 2020, accompanied by Syrian and Russian aerial bombardments, has already left more than 500 dead, according to an NGO.
