Latest UNHCR relief consignment from Dubai to help 150,000 Syrians

Dubai: The largest UNHCR consignment of relief items for internally displaced Syrians had left Dubai for Syria on Friday, from the UNHCR’s International Humanitarian City-based stockpile to help meet the needs of thousands of internally displaced persons in Syria.

The “M/V England” sailed out of Dubai’s Jebel Ali port carrying 24 containers, each 40 feet in length loaded with UNHCR aid. This shipment follows the departure last week of the “M/V Msc Messina” which was loaded with 20 containers of specially produced UNHCR relief items.

The shipment of relief items includes more than 29,000 plastic tarpaulins, 150,000 sleeping mats, 75,000 jerry cans of watrer and 30,000 kitchen sets. The aid will be stored in UNHCR’s warehouse in Tartous for distribution to internally displaced persons in war-affected communities throughout Syria.

“This shipment will help 150,000 displaced Syrians in areas amongst the most difficult to reach, such as Idlib, Aleppo, Raqqa and Deir Ezzor,” Tarik Kurdi, UNHCR Representative in Syria said.

The 44 containers are scheduled to reach Syria’s Tartous seaport in about a month. This is UNHCR’s largest container shipment of relief aid this year from the agency’s Central Emergency Stockpile in Dubai’s International Humanitarian City to Syria.

“This shipment is amongst the largest consignments of aid UNHCR Syria will have received this year and it is much awaited,” said Kurdi. “The situation of Syria’s displaced people is dire, they urgently need these basic domestic items to survive.”

UNHCR’s kits of core relief items have reached two million internally displaced persons inside Syria so far this year, which represents two-thirds of the three million people UNHCR plans to support by year-end. Such assistance has been delivered in all 14 Governorates of Syria, including the hard-to-reach.

UNHCR’s 44 container shipment of relief items is part of the UN refugee agency’s efforts to help prepare many of Syria’s more than 4.25 million internally displaced persons for the upcoming winter. Overall, relief agencies estimate that there are more than 6.8 million people in need of humanitarian assistance within Syria.

In addition to its ongoing work inside Syria, UNHCR also oversees aid to more than 2.1 million Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries, including more than 760,000 in Lebanon, 525,000 in Jordan, some 495,000 in Turkey, 192,000 in Iraq and 127,000 in Egypt.