Syria

11 years after the Syrian conflict began, six in ten Syrians do not know where their next meal is coming from, said Oxfam today. It warned that reliance on imports from Russia means the current crisis in Europe could ripple into Syria, exacerbating food shortages and causing food prices to soar. In the last year, food prices in Syria have doubled.

In reaction to the pledges made today at the Brussels-Syria donor conference, Oxfam Syria’s Country Director, Moutaz Adham, said “The money pledged confirms fears that donors are not listening to the pleas of the millions of Syrians who have fled their homes and had their lives torn apart by ten years of conflict. 

Two Oxfam aid workers were today killed in an attack at 2 pm local time in Dar’a governorate in southern Syria, between Nawa and Al-Yadudah.

Wissam Hazim, Southern Hub Staff Safety Officer, and Adel Al-Halabi, a driver, were both killed when their vehicle was attacked by a so-far unidentified armed group.  An Oxfam volunteer was also injured.

In response to the results of the vote on a UN resolution continuing to allow cross-border aid into Syria, Oxfam’s Head of Office in New York, Brenda Mofya said: “The UN Security Council’s decision to renew the cross-border resolution for only six months is deeply disappointing and could potentially leave more than four million people in northwest Syria without the assistance they depend upon to survive when the harsh winter months arrive."

In reaction to the pledges made today at the Brussels conference on Syria, Oxfam in Syria Country Director, Moutaz Adham, said: “The pledges made today are welcomed and show that the international community has not forgotten Syrians."

In reaction to today’s "Global Report on Food Crises” which says that more than 193 million people across 53 countries are experiencing acute hunger and require urgent food, nutrition and livelihoods assistance, Oxfam Global Food Security and Livelihoods expert, Emily Farr, said: “It is deeply concerning to find extreme hunger increasing to a magnitude never seen before. 40 million more people have been pushed to extreme hunger, nearly a 25% surge since last year, and 80% since 2016."

Over a quarter of a billion more people could crash into extreme levels of poverty in 2022 because of COVID-19, rising global inequality and the shock of food price rises supercharged by the war in Ukraine, reveals a new Oxfam brief today. 

The global repercussions of the Ukraine crisis ―already being felt in fast-rising food, commodity and energy prices― could undermine official aid efforts to help people in other humanitarian hot-spots. 

In response to the results of the vote on a UN resolution continuing to allow cross-border aid into Syria, Oxfam’s Regional Humanitarian Campaign Lead for MENA, Georges Ghali said: “The UN Security Council’s decision means that millions of Syrians who are suffering from the scourge of war, compounded by an economic collapse and a global pandemic, will continue to face an uncertain future. At a time when three in five Syrians are facing acute hunger, it is unconscionable to limit humanitarian assistance in this way."
 
 

A new Oxfam report today says that as many as 11 people are likely dying of hunger and malnutrition each minute. This is more than the current global death rate of COVID-19, which is around seven people per minute. The report, ‘says that conflict remains the primary cause of hunger since the pandemic, pushing over half a million people into famine-like conditions ―a six-fold increase since 2020.