IOM struggles to maintain lifesaving operations in Syria

As Syria enters its fourth year of conflict, more than 9.3 million people are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance within the country. Another 2.5 million refugees have fled the violence into neighbouring Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt.

Since the beginning of the crisis, IOM has provided life-saving assistance to nearly 2 million affected individuals acros all 14 governorates inside Syria, as well as in the neighbouring countries.

Inside Syria, access remains a huge challenge. A quarter of a million people are estimated to live in besieged areas and 3.5 million are trapped in hard or impossible to reach areas.

IOM is a key humanitarian partner for the delivery of relief items in cross line and hard to reach areas. It has participated in 51 of the 58 UN inter-agency convoys organized in cross line areas since the beginning of the crisis.

Since 2013, IOM has scaled up its field presence in all 14 governorates inside Syria to be able to identify new displacement, assess needs and rapidly respond through delivery of relief items.

Over the past four months, the Organization has been able to organize on average 100 non food relief item (NFI) convoys each month and assisted nearly 650,000 individuals in 10 governorates: Aleppo, As Sweida, Damascus, Daraa, Hama, Homs, Idleb, Latakia, Rural Damascus, and Tartous.

In addition, IOM continues to identify shelters in need of urgent rehabilitation and located in often hard to reach areas. Over 90 collective shelters have been rehabilitated by IOM since the beginning of the crisis. Another 180 public shelters have been identified in the past four months, and negotiations are underway to assist hard to access shelters in Aleppo, Homs, Hasakeh and Rural Damascus.

But at the current level of funding, IOM will not be able to sustain its humanitarian operations after June. “We received $75 million last year – 80 per cent of our appeal. This year, our level of funding is reaching worryingly low levels. While humanitarian actors are striving every day to secure more access in Syria, we may find ourselves in a situation where we do not have the funds that we need to deliver,” says IOM Director of Emergencies Mohammed Abdiker.

For 2014, under the Syrian Humanitarian Assistance Response Plan (SHARP) and the Regional Response Plan (RRP 6), IOM is appealing to the international community for almost $150 million. To date the appeal is only 5 per cent covered.