Between economic and health crisis, the weariness of donor countries and political calculations of the powers involved in the Syrian conflict, humanitarian actors did not hide their fears or their skepticism during the Ve donors’ conference for Syria, organized by the United Nations and the European Union, Monday 29 March and Tuesday 30 March.
The UN had called for donations of at least 10 billion dollars (8.5 billion euros) for the current year, recalling that 24 million people need support in Syria and the region, i.e. 4 million more than in 2020. The stated objective was to collect “At least $ 4.2 billion for the humanitarian response inside Syria and an additional $ 5.8 billion to support refugees and host communities in the region”, had specified the United Nations.
With only 4.4 billion dollars in pledges for 2021, and 2 billion for 2022 and the following years, according to an initial count made by European Commissioner Janez Lenarcic, we are far from the mark. The amount of the pledges “Confirms fears that donors will not heed the pleas of millions of Syrians who have fled their homes and whose lives have been torn apart by ten years of war”, alarmed the NGO Oxfam. “The situation is getting worse”, had however alerted the UN Assistant Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, Mark Lowcock.
6.2 million internally displaced
On the ground, the vulnerability of the Syrian populations, in Syria itself as in the surrounding countries, continues to worsen. Far from the “return to normalcy” praised by the Damascus regime, which has regained control of more than 70% of the territory in recent years, relegating to the margins of the country nearly 3 million people in the Idlib region, the last zone still in the hands of the rebellion in the North-West; some 2.6 million in the territories administered by the Kurdish forces, in the North-East and the East; and about 1.3 million in pockets of territories in the northern border of Turkey, under the control of Turkish forces and their Syrian auxiliaries.
The World Food Program estimated in February that 12.4 million people, or nearly 60% of the Syrian population, were food insecure in December 2020, compared to 9.3 million people who were hungry. in May of that same year, while the currency keeps plunging. In ten years, the Syrian pound has lost almost 99% of its value.
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