UN: 4m will need aid by early 2013

The number of people inside Syria in need of emergency humanitarian aid is expected to rise to more than four million early next year, while refugee numbers will soar to 700,000, the head of the UN’s humanitarian efforts said Friday. “In the early new year... we’re predicting that the numbers of people in need will exceed four million, up from 2.5 million,” John Ging, who heads the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told reporters in Geneva. “This will just continue to grow in the terms of humanitarian suffering.” Ging, who was speaking after a humanitarian forum on Syria, also said the number of refugees in neighbouring countries was likely to grow from more than 400,000 today to around 700,000 — a number already calculated into aid needs. After various UN aid organisations presented their views on the situation to potential donor countries, Ging said the numbers he mentioned were “absolutely... not the worst case scenario.” “But it is an appalling scenario that should inspire and motivate” politicians and those in power to double their efforts to end the near 20-month conflict, he said. Humanitarian Forum in Geneva where between 350 and 400 representatives of governments, international organizations and aid groups heard reports on the sharply deteriorating humanitarian situation in Syria. “People need to be aware of just how desperate the situation is inside Syria for the people there, how unbearable it is, and how they are suffering and falling into ever deeper despair and humanitarian need,” Ging said. “It’s just getting a lot worse very rapidly for the ordinary people.” The UN refugee agency said earlier that more than 11,000 Syrians had fled into neighbouring countries in the past 24 hours alone. Radhouane Nouicer, the UN’s regional humanitarian coordinator for Syria, said the Middle East nation is seeing unrelenting increases in violence, suffering, displacement and losses “and civilian Syrians continue to pay the price.”