Top U.S. officials who have just returned from visits to Turkey and Jordan said that 140,000 people have fled to neighboring countries to escape the deteriorating conflict in Syria, and that everyday more Syrians were crossing borders seeking safety.
Maria Otero, Under-Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy &Human Rights; Kelly Clements, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Population, Refugees & Migration; and Mark Bartolini, Director of the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance, held a Special Briefing in Washington on Thursday focusing on U.S. humanitarian assistance to those affected by the conflict in Syria.
They met with government officials, representatives from non-governmental organizations, international agencies, human rights activists, youth groups, and refugees to discuss a variety of issues, including human rights and trafficking in persons.
They said they were able to witness the enormous humanitarian concerns facing the people displaced both on the Jordanian and Turkish borders.
Clements said in the course of just one night, nearly 1,300 Syrians arrived at Turkish camps, and "there are now reports of upwards of 8,500 Syrians who crossed the border into Lebanon in the last 24 hours."
In Turkey, there are about 42,600 people currently in the camps along the border. In Jordan, there are 37,000, of which about 35,000 have been registered with UNHCR. There are many more Syrians who have crossed that border but have not availed themselves of the need for international assistance. In Lebanon, there are 32,500, and those numbers are swelling very rapidly. About 8,000 Syrians fled to Iraq.
According to Clements, the international community's support is crucial to ensuring that basic needs are being met. He commended the governments of Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon for bearing a significant financial burden, and assured that they are not alone.
The United States announced during the Syria Humanitarian Forum in Geneva earlier this week an additional $6 million to bolster humanitarian response for the Syrian crisis. This brings U.S. assistance in 2012 to nearly $64 million, and the U.S. delegation said "more is coming."
Otero said the U.S. delegation visited camps in Turkey and in Jordan and spoke with some of the refugees, and realized that the medical need was predominant. "We saw people who had been seriously wounded, people with missing limbs who had been sewn up hurriedly. I saw and met with a woman who had a bullet gone through her eye and out her cheek and who was there having suffered that wound, again, fleeing," he told reporters.
Bartolini said about 500,000 people were in need of food aid that the World Food Program was reaching. And that number is expected to go up, he added.
The U.N. estimates that more than 10,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed and tens of thousands displaced in bloody fights between state forces and armed rebels, who began the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad some 16 months ago.
Russia and China on Thursday vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have imposed sanctions on Damascus.
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