DAMASCUS: The United Nations launched a record $ 5.2-billion aid appeal for Syria yesterday as regime forces sought to capitalize on recent victories over the rebels, sending reinforcements to battlefields Homs and Aleppo.
The world body, meanwhile, scrambled to find replacement troops for its peacekeeping mission on the Golan Heights after heavy fighting between regime forces and rebels near its headquarters on Thursday prompted Austria to announce it was pulling out.
The sum sought by the UN by far overshadows the $ 2.2 billion (1.7 billion euros) that it appealed for in 2003 to help cope with the crisis sparked by the war in Iraq.
The world body said that a total of $ 3.8 billion was needed to help Syrian refugees who have spilled across the country’s borders to escape fighting in their homeland.
The figure for operations inside Syria, meanwhile, was $ 1.4 billion.
More than 94,000 people have been killed and some 1.6 million Syrians have fled the country since the civil war began in March 2011 after a crackdown on protests against President Bashar Assad’s regime.
The number of refugees is expected to reach at least 3.45 million by the end of this year, according to the UN appeal.
Within the country, a total of 6.8 million people are forecast to need aid this year, the majority of them people who have been forced to flee their homes because of the fighting.
“By the end of the year, half of the population of Syria will be in need of aid,” said Adrian Edwards, spokesman for the UN’s refugee agency.
Syria’s pre-war population was 20.8 million.
The Lebanese Army warned of a “plot” to embroil the country in the 26-month conflict, as deadly clashes between supporters and opponents of the Assad regime multiply on its territory. The Observatory said government forces were also massing “in their thousands” in Aleppo province, aiming primarily to take territory along the border with Turkey. “They want to cut rebel supply lines from Turkey.”
UN leaders held emergency talks late Thursday to replace the 377 Austrian troops who make up more than a third of UNDOF, which has monitored a cease-fire between Israel and Syria since 1974.
President Vladimir Putin proposed that Russian peacekeepers replace the departing Austrian troops ahead of a meeting of the UN Security Council on the UNDOF crisis yesterday.
Meanwhile, two journalists working for a French radio channel have gone missing in Syria, with no word from them in 24 hours, their employer Europe 1 said.
UN in $ 5.2 bn Syria aid appeal as crisis deepens
