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| [PHOTO: © UNHCR/A.Eurdolian] |
Damascus/Geneva: UNICEF is urgently mobilising more than 100,000 children’s
clothing kits and around 160,000 blankets, including baby blankets, along with
other winter supplies for displaced children in Syria and surrounding
countries.
Drawing on its global supply networks, the UN agency is sourcing
winter supplies where they are available and can be provided at speed.
“Temperatures are falling fast, down to 5 degrees Celcius
this week with expected lows around freezing point. We urgently need to get
clothing and other essential items to the most vulnerable children, no matter where
they are,” said Ettie Higgins, Deputy Representative, UNICEF Syria.
Many Syrian children fled their homes with only summer
clothing. Now they are in temporary shelters and in desperate need of warm
clothes. UNICEF is worried about the impact winter will have on children’s
health, including increased risk of respiratory conditions. Children are
already fragile from the ongoing stress associated with displacement and
conflict.
UNICEF is procuring clothing kits for some 75,000 vulnerable
children up to 15 years old inside Syria. Each kit includes thermal underwear,
long trousers, a woolen sweater, socks, woolen gloves and hat, shoes and a
winter jacket.
The blankets will be distributed to children and families
displaced by the ongoing conflict, the vast majority inside Syria. They include
11,000 baby blankets for infants in Syria. Of these, more than 26,000
pre-positioned blankets, for example, will be leaving UNICEF’s humanitarian hub
in Dubai in the next week bound for Syria, while 41,000 further blankets are
being sourced in Pakistan.
Health supplies that can meet the needs of more than 225,000
people for three months are also on their way to Syria from UNICEF’s Copenhagen
supply warehouse. UNICEF has already readied half a million school bags, each
containing stationery supplies, to boost numbers already distributed. Further
supplies are being sourced within Syria where possible.
“Sourcing supplies from around the world and getting them
into Syria is only half the solution,” said Higgins. “We face enormous
challenges on the ground because of the security situation, but with our
network of dedicated partners we will do everything we can to ensure that children
get the warm clothes and blankets that they urgently need.”
The situation of the estimated 400,000 Syrian refugees in
surrounding countries, around half of them children, is also grim.
In Lebanon, UNICEF plans to reach more than 24,000 children
with clothing kits and clothing vouchers, along with an initial 10,000
blankets. In Jordan, 78 heated winter tents for use as child friendly spaces
and classrooms are to be set up over the next month. Solar panels are being
installed at refugee washing centres in both Jordan and Iraq to provide hot
water.
UNICEF urgently needs an additional $79.33m to support its
emergency response in Syria and the four surrounding countries.