Syria: 2.8 million now have permanent disabilities

About 2.8 million Syrians suffer permanent disabilities due to the ongoing conflict in their country, a new report issued by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) has revealed.

Al-Araby Al-Jadeed cited the report as also revealing that 2.9 million Syrian children under five years of age have suffered through the experience of the intractable conflict in Syria.

The report, which identified the humanitarian needs for Syrians in 2017, also showed that 30,000 Syrians were exposed to psychological trauma every month.

In addition, the report said that there are seven million Syrian children living in poverty, and 1.75 million children deprived from access to schools with a further 400,000 children expected to leave schools or drop out due to the closure of one third of schools in the country.

The report revealed that 13.5 million Syrian people are in need of urgent aid, including 5.8 million children, noting that there are one million Syrians living under siege conditions and 3.9 million living in hard-to-reach areas while 6.3 million were internally displaced.

The UNOCHA report found that 85 per cent of the Syrian population lived under the poverty line and 4.3 million needed shelter.

A previous report showed that 11.5 million Syrians required health care, 13.5 million needed shelter and support and 12.1 million required water and sanitation. It also showed that about 2.48 million people do not have secure access to food, noting that since the crisis began in 2011, life expectancy among Syrians has dropped by more than 20 years.