Syria Humanitarian Crisis

• In 2023, 15.3 million people in Syria require humanitarian assistance including 7 million children and 4.5 million women. For the first time, Syrians living across every sub-district are experiencing some degree of humanitarian stress.
• 12.1 million people are food insecure.
• Syria has the largest number of IDPs in the world with 6.8 million.
• The World Bank estimates more than 50% of Syrians live in extreme poverty. Before the conflict, extreme poverty in Syria was virtually non-existent.
• Between Aug. 25 and Oct. 29, 30,219 suspected cholera cases were reported, including 85 attributed deaths. Suspected cholera cases have been reported from all 14 of Syria’s governorates.
• The United Nations (UN) says that between March 2011 and March 2021, more than 350,000 people were killed in the Syrian conflict. However, the number of people killed is believed to be higher. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights documented more than 494,000 fatalities during this same period.  

The 7.8 magnitude earthquake that occurred in Turkey on Feb. 6, 2023, resulted in devastating and deadly outcomes in Syria and will only worsen the humanitarian situation in the country’s northwest. A complex humanitarian emergency (CHE) is a crisis involving multiple causes and often includes a breakdown in authority or inadequate capacity.

The recent earthquake, a natural hazard, is devastating on its own. However, in the broader context of the Syrian CHE, the earthquake is a massive catastrophe because it exacerbates underlying vulnerabilities and complicates disaster response and recovery. For example, getting aid into northwest Syria was already complicated and the earthquake ensures that the movement of aid through the border will be disrupted.

Syria saw its worst drought in 70 years in 2021, which affected access to drinking water, electricity generation and irrigation. The water crisis was particularly damaging for the country’s wheat harvest, with a loss in production of more than 1 million tons in 2021 compared to the previous year.

The long-running war has severely damaged and neglected infrastructure, but the water situation is exacerbated by the impacts of climate change and other weather events. An estimated 52% of Syrians rely on often unsafe alternatives to piped water. Water deficits have been exacerbated by unusually dry conditions during the wet season and by abnormally high air temperatures. UNOCHA says “a severe drought and lower than expected flows of the Euphrates River, coupled with the high cost of fuel and price increases, resulted in a contraction of the harvestable cereal area at a time when 12.6m people.”

In northeast Syria, known as the country’s food basket, the quantity and quality of wheat flour has declined due in part to drought.

Socio-economic conditions have been deteriorating rapidly in Syria, with the depreciation of the local currency leading to inflation that worsens food insecurity and pushes people into poverty. According to the World Bank, between 2010 and 2019, Syria’s GDP shrunk by more than half.  

Syria’s economy has arguably hit its lowest point since the start of its civil war nearly 12 years ago. The currency collapse in neighboring Lebanon has driven devaluation and higher prices in Syria. The country was also affected by the COVID-19 downturn, Russia’s war in Ukraine which increased prices and a slowdown in shipments of oil from Iran.

The country’s debilitating economic crisis is severely affecting Syrian families. According to UNOCHA, “The crippled economy, which is characterized by high inflation, currency depreciation and increases in the prices of commodities, remains one of the biggest drivers of need. It drives more people towards poverty, makes them more reliant on humanitarian assistance, increases resort to harmful coping mechanisms and increases the cost.”

A report released in May 2022 by the Norwegian Refugee Council found only one in 10 people reported being able to meet the $206 needed each month to cover food, rent, education and other essentials. The situation forced people into new survival strategies such as eating less, selling fuel aid to buy food, burning old shoes to keep warm and skipping urgent medical procedures. 

During the second half of 2021, hostilities re-intensified in northern and southern Syria, triggering new displacements and destruction. There are an estimated 6.8 million IDPs in Syria, the largest concentration of IDPs in any single country globally. For IDPs inside camps, limited livelihood opportunities, poor shelter and overcrowding conditions contribute to vulnerability. For IDPs outside camps, shelter needs remain high. Additionally, many lack access to non-food items and have limited access to basic services and infrastructures.

More than 10 years of ongoing hostilities have led millions of Syrians to flee the country in search of safety and basic needs. As of Dec. 31, 5,456,945 Syrian refugees were formally registered in neighboring countries.

Inflation and deteriorating economic conditions in Turkey have led Syrian refugees to report increased tension with host community members. Fearing discrimination and negative attitudes, some Syrians report a reluctance to speak Arabic in public spaces or feeling unsafe.  

According to Human Rights Watch, Turkish authorities arbitrarily arrested, detained, and deported hundreds of Syrian refugee men and boys to Syria between February and July 2022. The deportations stand in contrast to Turkey’s record of generosity as host to more refugees than any other country in the world.

In November 2022, the humanitarians recorded 9,012 spontaneous IDP return movements across Syria, which is almost the same as the return movements that were tracked in October 2022. Of this figure, around 5,000 (55%) occurred within Dar’a and Rural Damascus governorates.

According to Syria’s 2023 Humanitarian Needs Overview, 12.1 million people in Syria are food insecure. In June 2022, WFP and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) released the Hunger Hotspots early warning report on acute food insecurity covering June to September 2022. In the report, Syria is among the hotspots with deteriorating conditions and is a country of very high concern.

According to a Save the Children report from Nov. 10, the number of malnourished children in northeast Syria has increased by over 150% in the past six months with at least 10,000 more children now facing malnutrition than in the previous six months. The humanitarian organization’s staff reported a fourfold increase, from 256 to over 1000, in the number of malnourished children screened in its 19 nutrition centers in camps in northeast Syria and in community settings.

The Syrian government has long kept aid from moving across front lines from government-held parts of the country into non-government-controlled areas. Cross–border aid from Turkey to northwestern Syria has become a critical avenue for getting humanitarian assistance to those who need it.  

In July 2022, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution to extend deliveries into northwestern Syria through the Bab Al-Hawa border crossing for six months. Ongoing renewal by the Security Council of this critical humanitarian access corridor is used as a political pawn by members of the Council, with regular threats to not adopt or veto the resolution. 

On Jan. 9, the UN Security Council unanimously renewed the cross-border operation for another six months, which is outside government control. Syria and Russia want humanitarians to deliver aid internally across conflict lines, but the UN says such “crossline” operations cannot match cross-border operations from Turkey into northwest Syria in terms of size and scope.

Millions of displaced people depend on cross-border aid, including the delivery of food, for their survival. The food security and livelihoods sector has targeted 1.4 million people for assistance through the Bab Al-Hawa crossing point.  

According to the northwest Syria Joint Market Monitoring Initiative (JMMI) in November 2022, the cost of the Survival Minimum Expenditure Basket in northwest Syria “is currently the highest recorded since JMMI monitoring began in 2016. This increase is largely attributed to the increase in the USD exchange rate which has risen steeply in the past three months affecting the price of key food items and transportation prices.”

A deadly cholera outbreak is spreading in Syria where a shortage of clean water, dense living conditions and few healthcare facilities provide the opportunity for the disease to thrive.

Between Aug. 25 and Oct. 29, 30,219 suspected cases have been reported, including 85 attributed deaths. Suspected cholera cases have been reported from all 14 of Syria’s governorates. The most affected governorates are Deir-ez-Zor (12,772 cases, 51.9%), ArRaqqa (5,965 cases, 24.2%), Aleppo (3,845 cases, 15.6%) and Al-Hasakeh (1,178 cases, 4.8%).

According to the UN Children’s Fund, “Of the suspected cases of cholera, 1 out of 4 are children under the age of 5. Malnutrition is increasing and diarrhoeal diseases further worsens the condition of malnourished children. This impacts the overall survival rate of children suffering from severe wasting.”

The cholera outbreak makes more apparent and more urgent the need to repair damaged water networks, improve communities’ access to safe drinking water and provide safer sanitation options. With the increased number of cholera cases and expansion into new geographical areas, persistent funding challenges limit the scale-up of health and water, sanitation and hygiene response activities.

According to Human Rights Watch, Turkish authorities are exacerbating the water crisis that is believed to have given rise to the deadly cholera outbreak spreading across Syria and into nearby countries. The World Health Organization has linked cholera’s comeback in neighboring Lebanon to the outbreak in Syria, where it had spread from Afghanistan via Iran and Iraq.

In addition to managing the cholera outbreak, humanitarians are also providing immunizations, maternal health care, mental health consultations and COVID-19 response. Syria’s Health Cluster says that as of the end of September, donors have funded only 13.2% of the sector’s request for $583 million.