These updates cover emergencies Oxfam is currently responding to around the world, although please note they don’t intend to be comprehensive.
Syria Crisis
Restrictions on Syrians to enter Jordan continue and some municipalities in Lebanon have given the Syrian refugees a warning to clear some towns and villages. This decision was made by the Ministry of Interior that is trying to ease tensions between Lebanese host communities and the Syrian refugees. The recent border restrictions on Syrians entering Lebanon are having a big impact – not just on new arrivals but on families whose members move back and forth across the border. Oxfam’s Protection Team provides a vital service to refugees, running sessions on where to find useful information, helping to form community groups, influencing the itinerary of mobile clinics, and referring sick people to medical facilities (because Syrians cannot refer themselves). They also help parents register the birth of their children, without which the child will technically ‘not exist’ and therefore be unable to ever move around or access medical or educational services. Over the past year our teams have provided help to about 1,600,000 people in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.
More widely, the 5th anniversary of the start of the Syria conflict is coming up in February. We are working to use that event to bring the world’s attention back to this emergency – now said to be the biggest displacement of people since WW2. The conflict shows no sign of abatement, and recent peace talks in Moscow gave no concrete outcome. Our Campaigns team is also updating the fair share analysis that Oxfam published in September 2014, which looked at the failure of international governments to adequately fund and support the regional refugee response. (Photo 1: Strong winds and heavy rains destroyed the tent that was the only shelter for this boy and his family consisting of 12 individuals, in a coastal area in North Lebanon.
