By Walid Saleh and Warda Al-Jawahiry in Tripoli, Lebanon | UNHCR*
In Lebanon, the capacity of local community and Syrian refugees to provide mutual support is being stretched to breaking point by economic turmoil and the COVID-19 crisis. |Español | Français| عربي
Behind the counter of her small convenience store in a rundown neighbourhood of Tripoli, northern Lebanon, 35-year-old Kawkab Mustafa keeps a list of debts owed to her by customers she has allowed to buy goods on credit. In recent months, the list has grown so long she needs four separate notebooks to record all the entries.
As the elderly and unwell self-isolate, a network of Syrians provides a vital bridge to the outside world for Swiss in greatest need. | Español | Français | عربي
The war in Syria has been taking its toll on children for nine years – their lives forever marked by the conflict. Hundreds of thousands of children are now fighting to reclaim their futures. Over the years, Human Rights Watch has heard just some of their stories:
When 15 boys were detained in Syria for scrawling anti-government graffiti on walls in Deraa, a city in Southwest Syria, news of their arrest sparked protests. The protesters called not only for the release of the boys, but for greater political freedom, and railed against government corruption.
Over 9,000 children killed or injured in the conflict, according to verified data, with an average of one child killed every 10 hours since monitoring began
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Children ride in the back of a truck as families flee from in Idlib Governate from escalating violence. | Photo from UNICEF.
AMMAN/NEW YORK, 15 March 2020 (UNICEF)* – Some 4.8 million children were born in Syria since the conflict began nine years ago. An additional 1 million were born as refugees in neighbouring countries. They continue to face the devastating consequences of a brutal war, UNICEF said today [15 March 2020].
(UN News)* — UN agencies have underscored their commitment to continue supporting civilians affected by the war in Syria, which this month enters its tenth year. The Secretary-General issued a statement on Thursday [12 March 2020], declaring that “we cannot allow the tenth year to result in the same carnage, the same flouting of human rights and international humanitarian law.”
(UN News)* – Humanitarian assistance needs to be scaled up significantly to more than a million people displaced by fighting in northwest Syria, a senior UN aid official said on Monday [2 March 2020], amid reports that children are freezing to death on the Turkish border.
“People are traumatized and frightened and urgently need better access to shelter, food, sanitation, basic health services and protection”, said Kevin Kennedy, Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syria Crisis.
27 February 2020 (UNHCR)* — Food was always a hobby for Salma, 53. Now a refugee in Berlin, the Syrian cook found her culinary skills in such demand she was able to make a living. Her secret ingredient? Passion.
(UN News)* — Air and ground strikes in the region of Idlib, northwest Syria, are causing “massive waves of civilian displacement and major loss of civilian life”, causing unacceptable human suffering which must stop now, Geir Pedersen, the UN Special Envoy for Syria, told the Security Council on Thursday [6 February 2020].
UNOCHA | Children pose outside a tent in a camp for displaced people in Idlib, northern Syria.
Nearly nine years of conflict in Syria have robbed boys and girls of their childhood and subjected them to “unabated violations of their rights”, including being killed, maimed, displaced, forced to fight or subjected to torture, rape and sexual slavery. The findings come in the latest report by the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria, released on Thursday [16 January 2020]. (*).
“I am appalled by the flagrant disregard for the laws of war and the Convention on the Rights of the Child by all parties involved in the conflict”, said Commission chair Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro.
Amidst concern for the safety and protection of more than three million civilians in Syria’s last rebel-held enclave, the UN’s most senior humanitarian and political affairs officials briefed the Security Council on Syria behind closed doors on Friday [3 January 2020]. (*).
Following the recent escalation of hostilities on the ground in the country’s northwest, Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock and the Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Rosemary DiCarlo, painted a dire picture of the deteriorating conditions.
Kawkab Mustafa pictured inside her shop in the Bab al-Tabbaneh neighbourhood of Tripoli, Lebanon. © UNHCR/Diego Ibarra Sánchez
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 