Aid crisis grows as more flee Syria
Date September 13, 2012
Syrian opposition fighters in a building in Aleppo on Tuesday. At least 72 people died in the latest fighting throughout the country, according to activists.
INTERNATIONAL relief officials have reported an increasingly grim aid crisis stemming from Syria's conflict, with 2 million people there not getting desperately needed help and a growing number of refugees overwhelming neighbouring countries' ability to absorb them.
With less than a week before the start of the school year, classes have been scrapped for tens of thousands of children because their schools have been destroyed or sequestered as quarters for displaced families, the officials say.
In the province of Homs, so many doctors have fled that only three surgeons remain for a population of 2 million, the officials say, and laws to protect civilians during wartime are being ignored by government soldiers and insurgents.
The UN refugee agency in Geneva said the number of people fleeing Syria had increased almost exponentially from 18,500 in June to 35,000 in July and 102,000 in August. About 2000 Syrians were crossing daily into Jordan, trying to evade air and artillery attacks on towns near the southern border, said Adrian Edwards, a spokesman for the refugee agency.
The exodus had pushed the number of Syrian refugees to more than 250,000, Mr Edwards said. Jordan has more than 85,000 refugees and Turkey has more than 78,000, including those who have registered or are awaiting registration.
Many more refugees have not registered and both countries count far greater numbers.
The agency said more than 10,000 people were waiting to cross into Turkey.
The latest estimates came as activists reported the deaths of at least 72 people in fighting around Syria. The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 20 people were killed or wounded when a government warplane bombed a residential building in the Haydariya area of the northern city of Aleppo.
One activist said mass displacement had led to profiteering by home owners who rented out houses in the Hajar al-Aswad suburb of Aleppo for $US500 ($A482) a month - several times the going rate.
