Child Refugee Crisis

Now reaching the five-year mark, the conflict in Syria is the biggest humanitarian crisis of our time. Indiscriminate and brutal violence against civilians, as well as the denial of aid, has forced half of the population to flee their homes, with 6.6 million people displaced inside Syria and another 4.7 million refugees seeking safety and assistance in neighboring countries and increasingly in Europe. It is estimated that between 250,000 and 470,000 have been killed.

The crisis has deteriorated even further over the past year, with the active involvement of the Russian military the latest in a seemingly never-ending spiral of military escalations. At least 14 nations, including four of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, are now militarily engaged in Syria. The siege of civilian areas has been a tactic since the very beginning of the war. In early 2011, protests began in Dara’a and the government closed off the town, shutting down electricity and cutting supplies of water and food for 11 days. Since then sieges have become increasingly systematic and commonplace. Some areas, such as Darayya and parts of Eastern Ghouta, have been under constant siege since 2012, with children and their families struggling to survive in a chronic crisis. Other areas have seen sieges tighten for months at a time, plunging them into a state of heightened emergency and starvation.

Save the Children and partners have conducted 22 focus groups with 126 mothers, fathers and children living in besieged areas of Syria, as well as 25 extensive interviews with local aid groups, doctors, teachers and individuals. These discussions painted a picture of enormous suffering and injustice, of sick children dying while the medicine they need is on the other side of a checkpoint, and of children forced to eat animal feed or leaves just a few kilometres from warehouses of food. 

To learn more, read Save the Children’s report: “Childhood Under Siege – Living and dying in besieged areas of Syria”

Links:

• Save the Children/Syria

• Childhood Under Siege (PDF)