(Geneva) 29 January 2013 – ICMC yesterday welcomed a delegation led by Assistant Secretary Anne Richard of the United States Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (BPRM), who had come to meet with Syrian refugees as thousands are crossing into Jordan to escape ongoing violence in their home country.

The delegation, consisting of senior officials from the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development, met with representatives from international humanitarian and non-governmental organizations including ICMC, International Medical Corps and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), as the United States seeks to provide more support to Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries and to those still in Syria.

Ms. Richard met with a female-headed family in the city of Al-Mafraq to learn more about the difficulties refugees have been confronted with. This 15-member family has received three months’ rent to help it cope with the coldest winter months as part of an assistance programme, run by ICMC and funded by BPRM. On a previous visit, in November 2012, Ms Richard invited ICMC to a round-table discussion on the needs, gaps in assistance, challenges and humanitarian response to the Syrian refugee crisis.

The one-year programme, started in August 2012, aims to alleviate refugees’ immediate subsistence needs to help them cope in exile until a more durable solution is found for them or they can return home. ICMC also provides hygiene packages for infants and young children of refugee families and supports the Jordanian host community through the adaption of houses where Syrian refugees are hosted with Jordanian families.

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When Ms. Richard asked Yaze Alhussien, a 65-year-old widower, whose husband was killed by a sniper at the family’s home in Homs, if she would like to go back home, she said: “Of course, as soon as it is safe.” Ms. Alhussien and her extended family fled Syria in April 2012. They have been relying on humanitarian assistance and living off their meagre and dwindling savings to survive.

Jordan is currently hosting an escalating numberof refugees fleeing Syria, with some 222,762 UNHCR reported< today. In January alone, some 40,000 Syrians have fled to Jordan severely straining the government and international community’s ability to meet their basic needs. More than 708,477 registered refugees and individuals awaiting registration have fled to neighbouring countries of Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, and Egypt. This number is expected to increase to 1.1 million people within the next six months in light of the ongoing violence, UNHCR said<.

On 25 January, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced that the U.S. will earmark an additional $10 million in humanitarian assistance in response to the escalating violence in Syria, bringing to $220 million the total provided to Syrians so far.

In addition to BPRM, ICMC also receives funding from other donors in support of Syrian refugees, in particular from the European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO).

Vanessa Matyas, ICMC Communications Officer in Geneva with reporting by Annika Hampson/lb

Photocredit © ICMC / Annika Hampson / January 2013
(Left to Right: Anne Richard, Osama Almuhammad, Nancy Lindborg (USAID), and Yaze Alhussien)