ANSD : Winter weather has killed 15 displaced children in Syria: U.N.

FRI 26 - 4 - 2024

Date: Jan 16, 2019
Source: The Daily Star

Winter weather has killed 15 displaced children in Syria: U.N.

_{Agence France Presse}
BEIRUT: Freezing temperatures and the lack of medical care have killed at least 15 displaced Syrian children in recent weeks, the United Nations reported Tuesday.

The U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said eight of them had died as a result of the cold in the Rukban camp in southeastern Syria and seven others during the displacement from the militant bastion of Hajin, further north.

“Freezing temperatures and harsh living conditions in Rukban ... are increasingly putting children’s lives at risk,” UNICEF regional director Geert Cappelaere said.

“In just one month, at least eight children - most of them under 4 months and the youngest only one hour old - have died,” he said.

Cappelaere explained that the cold in the isolated desert camp on the Jordanian border, where 80 percent of the 45,000 residents are women and children, was increasing infant mortality. The cold snap that has hit the region is also having dire consequences on people fleeing the fighting in the so-called Hajin pocket in eastern Syria.

The area near the Iraqi border has seen intense fighting between Daesh (ISIS) militants defending the last remnants of their “caliphate” and Kurdish-led forces backed by U.S. airstrikes. According to the U.N., more than 10,000 people have fled the area since December.

“Families seeking safety face difficulties leaving the conflict zone and wait in the cold for days without shelter or basic supplies,” Cappelaere said.

“The dangerous and difficult journey has reportedly killed seven children - most of them under one-year-old” in Hajin, he said.

According to the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces battling the militants and to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, significant numbers of Daesh members have attempted to blend in with fleeing civilians.

The United Nations has consistently asked for improved humanitarian access in Syria.

Rukban has been particularly difficult to reach due to its sensitive location on the Jordanian border and the proximity of U.S. forces and the rebels they support.

Emergency supplies were delivered in November in the first aid convoy to reach Rukban in 10 months.

The World Food Program Tuesday demanded a second such convoy be organized as soon as possible.

“The lives of babies continue to be cut short by health conditions that are preventable or treatable. There are no excuses for this in the 21st century,” Cappelaere said.

“This tragic man-made loss of life must end now,” he said.

Tuesday, Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi spoke with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov about the Rukban camp, the Jordanian Foreign Ministry said.

They discussed “the necessity on working to ensure the return of Rukban residents to their cities and towns” after Jordanian-Russian-American coordination.

Residents in Rukban have however said they will not go back to areas under the control of President Bashar Assad’s Russia-backed regime.

“We will not accept anything but the camp being transferred to northern Syria,” they said in a statement Monday, referring to areas of the war-torn country still under rebel control.

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