The United Nations has appealed for $22.5 billion to provide humanitarian aid to more than 90 million people next year. Armed conflicts and natural disasters have driven up the estimated aid total to a record level.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/M. Huwais
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The UN launched its annual aid drive on Friday asking donors around the world for a record-high amount of $22.5 billion (€18.9 billion) to pay for humanitarian aid in 2018.
UN agencies and other humanitarian organizations said the sum would help a targeted 90 million people that the world body considers "the most vulnerable."
Nearly 136 million people are predicted to need aid in 26 countries in 2018, rising over 5 percent from last year's estimate.
"More people than ever before will need our assistance," UN humanitarian affairs chief Mark Lowcock said in a statement.
The chances that the UN and aid organizations will be able to raise the amount looked slim. Last year, donors fell short of the $22.2 billion requested last year for 2017, donating only $13 billion for aid.
Syria, Yemen are most in need
Wars and natural disasters around the world have driven up the cost of and need for humanitarian aid, the UN said.
Yemen will likely remain the world's worst humanitarian crisis, where 7 million to 8 million people are "right on the brink of famine," Lowcock said. He also called on the military coalition led by Saudi Arabia to fully lift its blockade on Yemen.
"That blockade has been partially wound down but not fully wound down. It needs to be fully wound down if we are to avoid an atrocious humanitarian tragedy involving the loss of millions of lives, the like of which the world has not seen for many decades," he said.
A total of $2.5 billion in aid will be needed for Yemen alone. However, Syria topped the list as the country most in need of humanitarian aid with $3.5 billion for assistance inside the war-torn country and another $4.16 billion for the needs of the country's 5.3 million refugees and the communities hosting them.
Over 340,000 people have been killed since the conflict erupted in March 2011.
"Exceptionally high levels" of need are also expected in Nigeria and South Sudan.
Noting that some progress had been made, the UN said humanitarian needs in several countries including Afghanistan, Iraq and Ukraine had declined slightly, but the needs "remain significant."
rs/sms (AFP, Reuters)
Going to school in wartime
With several countries in the Middle East in the grip of conflicts, children there are not only in danger but often miss out on schooling. Efforts are made to keep lessons going, even under dire conditions.
Image: Reuters/A. Zeyad
Lessons continue despite destruction
These girls are attending a class at their school in the Yemeni port city of Hedeidah despite the fact that a wall has been almost completely taken out by a Saudi-led air strike. The country has been enmeshed in a bloody civil war for three years now, and the conflict shows no sign of ending. Saudi Arabia has led a coalition fighting Iran-backed Houthi rebels since 2015.
Image: Reuters/A. Zeyad
Learning in a barn
Syria is another country in the Middle East wracked by civil conflict, with millions displaced and hundreds of thousands killed. Some of the displaced children are seen here being taught in a barn for lack of school buildings in the rebel-held area of Daraa in southern Syria. Chairs are also in short supply, meaning several of the children have been forced to sit on stones instead.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/M. Abazeed
Failed deal
Although Iran and Russia, which both back the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, made a deal with rebel backer Turkey to make Eastern Ghouta a "de-escalation zone" from July, the agreement has been repeatedly violated. This school in the Eastern Ghouta village of Hamouria did not escape damage, and humanitarian workers have warned of a dire situation inside the enclave.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/A. Almohibany
Makeshift school
Syrian children are seen here attending classes in improvised conditions in a rebel-held area of the southern city of Daraa. Although many countries are determined that children in Syria should not become a "lost generation" for lack of schooling, the war is making it difficult and sometimes impossible for lessons to continue.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/M. Abazeed
Return to normality amid signs of war
This wall at a school in the Syrian village of Hazima, north of Raqqa, is full of bullet holes from the war. The extremist group "Islamic State" closed the school and many others in northern Syria when it took over the region in 2014. Now it has been driven out, children can go back to learning normal subjects instead of the extremist propaganda taught by the hardline Islamists.
Image: Reuters/Z. Bensemra
Games amid ruins
"Where do the children play?" British singer Yusuf Islam, commonly known by his former stage name of Cat Stevens, once asked in a song. These children have found their playground in this damaged school in al-Saflaniyeh in eastern Aleppo province. But one can only wish they had nicer, and safer, surroundings for their games.
