Bradley H. Kerr serves as promotional copywriter in CNEWA’s New York office.
Today’s New York Times gives a heartbreaking report on the refugee crisis in and around Syria:
With less than a week before the start of the Syrian school year, classes have been scrapped indefinitely for tens of thousands of children, because their schools have either been destroyed or been sequestered as squatters’ quarters for displaced families, the officials said. In the province of Homs, so many doctors have fled that only three surgeons remained to serve a population of two million, the officials said, and laws to protect civilians during wartime were being ignored by both government soldiers and insurgents.
The United Nations refugee agency in Geneva said the number of people fleeing Syria had increased almost exponentially, from 18,500 in June to 35,000 in July to 102,000 in August. Roughly 2,000 Syrians were crossing daily into Jordan alone, trying to evade air and artillery attacks on towns near the southern border, said Adrian Edwards, a spokesman for the refugee agency.
The exodus has pushed the number of Syrian refugees to more than a quarter of a million, Mr. Edwards said.
There are more details in The New York Times.
CNEWA is working hard to provide lifesaving aid — such as food, medicine and heating oil — to Syrian refugees.