Situation
The past 4 years of this crisis have seen a further deterioration of the situation in Syria. Estimated 12.2 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance with more than half of the pre-crisis Syrian population being displaced either internally or as refugees in the neighbouring countries.
Humanitarian needs in Syria have increased twelvefold since the beginning of the crisis, including more than 5.6 million children. More than half of the total Syria’s population has been forced to leave their homes, often multiple times, making Syria the largest displacement crisis in the world.
According to the 2014- 2015 statistics, Syria is facing the following situation: four out of every five Syrians live in poverty, and almost two-thirds live in extreme poverty. Being in the fifth year of the crisis, the situation in Syria becomes more protracted with an increased urgent need for humanitarian assistance. Due to the protracted character of the crisis, the number of people in need for humanitarian assistance has increased continuously to half of Syria’s population. All segments of Syria’s population life have been affected by multiple cycles of displacements, overload on the basic social and health services, decreased access to food and water aggravated by reduction of alternatives for livelihood activities.
By the end of the first quarter of 2015, the security situation in the country has significantly changed in several areas.
Widespread violence intensified throughout the country in March, particularly in the governorates of Al Hassakeh, Aleppo, Damascus, Dar’a, Deir ez-Zor, Hama, Homs, Idleb, Lattakia and Rural Damascus, increasing the numbers of casualties, injuries, destruction of homes and infrastructure as well as displacement of civilians. The escalation of violence in Idleb- and more specifically in Idleb city- has resulted in massive population displacement to the rural and northern areas of Idleb, to Tartus and Damascus. By the end of April more than 130,000 people were displaced.
In addition, most of the areas in the north eastern part of the country (Ar-Raqqa, rural Aleppo, Deir Ez-zor and parts of Hasakeh) are hard to reach, not being regularly accessible for continuous humanitarian assistance due to security and safety considerations, and restrictions because of the ongoing violence.
Some areas of Hama and Homs Governorates have become more difficult to access. At the same time, the situation near Damascus has deteriorated mainly in some rural areas close to the city. The situation in Yarmouk camp is particularly alarming where approximately 12,000 families have been displaced to nearby safer locations.
SARC managed to agree on the delivery of needed items to Duma at the beginning of May. During distributions shelling started at the location near SARC sub-branch building when one SARC volunteer lost her life while trying to collect baby milk from the convoy and resulting in several casualties.