UNICEF calls for funds to help Syrian refugee children in Jordan

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has urgently appealed for additional funds to meet the health and protection needs of an increasing number of Syrian refugee children and their families who have fled to Jordan to escape the ongoing conflict in their home country. According to UNICEF, some 17,000 people – half of them children – are sheltered at the Za’atari refugee camp in the north of Jordan, but numbers are increasing daily with hundreds of new arrivals from Syria. The neighbouring country has been wracked by violence, with more than 17,000 people, mostly civilians, killed since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began some 17 months ago. "We expect to have 70,000 people at Za’atari camp by the end of this year," UNICEF’s Representative for Jordan, Dominique Hyde, said in a news release. "We must act now because it is children who continue to suffer most. So more funding is urgently required to scale-up our emergency response activities." The agency is appealing for $54 million to cover the emergency needs of Syrian refugees sheltering in the Za’atari camp and surrounding communities.