The United Nations on Monday appealed for $54 million to support the needs of tens of thousands of Syrian refugees in Jordan, particularly children who “suffer most." The funds are “urgently" needed “to meet the emergency health, protection, and water and sanitation needs of the growing numbers of Syrian refugee children and their families arriving in Jordan," the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) said in a statement. Some 200,000 refugees have fled Syria for neighboring countries, according to the United Nations. About 17,000 are sheltered at the U.N.-run Zaatari refugee camp in north Jordan, and half of those are children. “We expect to have 70,000 people at Zaatari camp by the end of this year," UNICEF Jordan representative Dominique Hyde said in the statement. “We must act now because it is children who continue to suffer most. So more funding is urgently required to scale-up our emergency response activities." UNICEF said conditions at the 7-square-kilometer Zaatari camp are “harsh, with scorching temperatures, no natural shade, and frequent sandstorms that rip through the camp." “There was a significant increase in the number of arrivals at the camp this last weekend, with more than 2,000 people crossing the border in a single night," the statement said. “This number is nearly 80 percent higher than the previous largest number of Syrians crossing into Jordan within a 24-hour period." “Children fleeing violence in Syria are at risk of suffering long-term distress without appropriate care," Hyde said. “In just a few months, we expect as many as 35,000 children will be at the camp, so we urgently need to provide additional safe places and other support to protect these children who have already suffered so much."
