Some 280,000 people have been displaced in Syria since November 27 due to fighting between rebels and Syrian forces, as a result of the meteoric rise of Islamist groups, the UN said today.
“The numbers we have are 280,000 people since November 27. This is the updated number from last night [Thursday]. And this does not include the number of people who fled Lebanon during the recent escalation” of fighting between the Shiite group Hezbollah and Israel, Samer AbdelJaber, director of emergency coordination for the World Food Programme (WFP), said during a press conference in Geneva.
“If the situation continues to evolve at the current pace, we collectively expect that around 1.5 million people will be displaced and will need our support” in Syria, he said.
Massive displacements have been occurring since rebels led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) launched their lightning offensive just over a week ago.
The offensive was launched as a fragile ceasefire was established in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah, a pro-Iran movement allied with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The war in Lebanon has caused hundreds of thousands of people to flee to Syria.
The WFP warned that new mass displacements within Syria, more than 13 years after the start of the country’s civil war, “are compounding years of suffering.”
Abdel Jaber said the WFP and its humanitarian partners wanted to “secure routes” that would allow aid to be delivered “to the communities that need it.”
“This is a crisis on top of a crisis,” he stressed, stressing the urgent need for additional funding to help meet the enormous needs of these populations.
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