World Insights Bringing You best of world at one placeMore than 700,000 Syrian refugees have registered or are awaiting registration in neighbouring countries as the conflict in their war-torn nation spirals further out of control, the UN s refugee agency said Tuesday.
“We ve had a huge push in the last few weeks. The needs are enormous,” UNHCR spokeswoman Sybella Wilkes told AFP, adding that a colleague on the ground had complained that “we cannot get to everyone fast enough.”
She pointed out that the number of Syrians registered as refugees or awaiting processing in the surrounding countries had reached 703,314 late Monday.
Of that number, she said, more than 581,000 were registered, and aid workers were doing their best to scale up the registration process “to clear the backlog.”
Wilkes pointed out that at this time last year, the UN agency was registering only a few hundred Syrian refugees each month in Lebanon.
“Now, the aim is to register 45,000 a month,” she said, adding that the current average stands at around 32,000.
In Jordan, which has seen a massive influx in recent weeks, “the plan is for the month of February alone to try to register 50,000 people,” Wilkes said.
About four million Syrians rely on international assistance to cope with the fallout from the 22-month old conflict in which the UN estimates more than 60,000 people have died.
Great migrations
The international aid group Doctors Without Borders, also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres, called Tuesday for international donors to support humanitarian operations in opposition-held areas in Syria.
The group said in a statement issued ahead of a donors conference in Kuwait City that areas under government control receive nearly all international aid.
“The current aid system is unable to address the worsening living conditions facing people inside Syria,” said Dr. Marie-Pierre Allie, president of MSF. “The participants in the Kuwait City conference must acknowledge the legitimacy of cross-border humanitarian operations intended for Syria and grant them the financial, administrative and logistical support they require.”
The number of refugees registered with the United Nations jumped by 110,000 in January, bringing the total to more than half a million.
If the refugees awaiting registration are included, the number exceeds 700,000, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said.
