UNHCR Update — October 2012 UNHCR Syria Update October 2012

Syria humanitarian response

Financial assistance

HIGHLIGHTS In mid-October UNHCR rolled out its financial assistance pro- gramme for affected Syrians in Hassakeh Governorate. By the end of the month cash assistance was provided to over 31,150 • In October, UNHCR dis- individuals (6,230 families). Hassakeh is the second location patched non-food items where affected Syrians have benefitted from the cash assistance (NFIs) for over 69,000 up- programme; some 3,540 families have received emergency funds rooted Syrians (13,800 to date in Al Nabek (south of ). families). and Hassakeh were the main In total, close to 49,000 persons or 9,800 families have received a areas benefitting from 1.5 million USD through the financial assistance programme, this assistance. which is implemented in cooperation with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) and the Governorate in Hassakeh. Preparations are underway to begin the programme in and Rural • In October, UNHCR Damascus in the coming weeks. reached the half-way mark of its goal to distrib- Winterization plan ute NFIs packages to 100,000 Syrian families Preparations for winter have become a priority, with the onset of (500,000 people) by the cold weather presenting additional hardships for the estimated end of this year. (SARC) 2.5 million Syrians uprooted across the country.

As part of the inter-agency efforts in Syria and of UNHCR’s emer- • UNHCR rolled out a cash gency response in the region, UNHCR Syria has prioritized specific assistance programme in activities for the remainder of the year to keep families warm dur- Hassakeh and has so far ing winter: reached over 6,230 fami- • Distribution of the standard non-food family assistance lies against a target of package, but with more mattresses, rugs, heavy winter 12,000 for the Gover- quilts as well as winter clothes; norate. • Cash assistance programme to help families cover winter expenses such as heating and electricity bills, and • Rehabilitation of communal centres to house uprooted per- • 44,200 refugees received sons. their bi-monthly cash-for- food allowance for Sep- To complete these urgent winter-related activities UNHCR has set tember and October. up a priority budget of 14 million USD. One pledge of 5.1 million has been made to date for these activities.

• Some 11,000 refugee children were provided Non-food relief items with annual education In October, UNHCR dispatched NFIs for over 69,000 uprooted Syri- grants helping them to ans (13,800 families) living in Damascus and Rural Damascus enrol in school. (Mezzeh, Al Zahira, Seyda Zainab, Adraa, Barzeh, Faiha’a etc.), Homs, Al , Aleppo and Hassakeh (please see map page 3). The last two locations were the main areas receiving assistance. As a result, UNHCR has now reached some 262,000 displaced Syr- ians (52,400 families) against its end-of-year target of 500,000 indi- viduals (100,000 Syrian families).

In addition to SARC, UNHCR’s main implementing partner for the emergency response, two other collaborators have been increas-

UNHCR Syria Update — October 2012 ingly involved in the distribution of non-food aid: the On the first day of Eid in Damascus, UNHCR and vol- Syria Trust for Development, which manages a num- unteers from the Syria Trust for Development orga- ber of communal shelters in Damascus, Rural Damas- nized recreational activities for the refugee children cus and Aleppo, as well as the Relief Committee es- residing in Al-Faiha’a Sports City communal shelter, tablished by the Governorate of Hassakeh, our long- including a show by magicians and cartoon charac- standing partner for the refugee response in this re- ters and a dance competition. UNHCR and SARC gion of north-eastern Syria. Non-food assistance is also distributed sweets to 500 children living in this benefitting Syrians living in communal shelters, pri- communal shelter and in three juvenile centres in Da- vate accommodation or in hosting families. mascus and Rural Damascus.

With the hope of taking advantage of an Eid truce Shelter UNHCR had pre-positioned almost 13,000 emergency UNHCR teams carried out their regular visits of com- family relief kits (550 tons) to help 65,000 persons in munal shelters in Damascus, Rural Damascus previously inaccessible areas in Aleppo, , Homs, (including Yarmouk which was not reachable for sev- Al Raqqa and Southern Hassakeh. As the violence eral weeks), Aleppo and Hassakeh to identify the continued over the Eid holiday UNHCR’s efforts had needs of Syrians living there, monitor the distribution only limited success due to a combination of insecu- of assistance and assess the centres’ rehabilitation rity and logistical difficulties such as fuel shortages. needs. Of note is that in spite of the insecurity, UN- HCR Aleppo team managed to visit some 50 com- UNHCR and its partners were nonetheless able to munal shelters over the past two months. make some progress in delivering emergency family kits to Homs, south Hassakeh, al Raqqa and Aleppo, UNHCR signed a sub-agreement with the Ministry of where assistance will be delivered security permitting Local Administration (MoLA) to start the rehabilitation in the coming weeks. UNHCR managed to get some of communal shelters in and outside Damascus. The 20 trucks of emergency family kits over the Eid holi- Office submitted project concept notes to MoLA on day to Homs, including 12 which arrived as part of a behalf of four potential NGO partners (Première Ur- joint UN mission to the city. gence, Secours Islamique France, Syrian Society for Social Development – SSSD, and Syria Trust for Devel- Eid celebrations opment). It has also received a list of over 450 com- munal shelters in need of rehabilitation countrywide from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour (MoSAL). UNHCR and other shelter actors are await- ing guidance from the relevant authorities regarding the priority shelters to rehabilitate in order to be able to start the project.

Health response Of the ten medical facilities supported by UNHCR across the country (see map page 3 on UNHCR’s in- tervention for the Syria crisis), seven were accessible to affected populations and operational during the first three weeks of October.

While the SARC clinic in Homs faced numerous diffi- culties, the Qudsya (Rural Damascus) clinic was op- erational but still out of reach to beneficiaries. The SARC clinic in Seyda Zainab is also regularly forced to close - approximately twice a week - due to the inse- curity. Movements of populations from Qudsya and other volatile areas in Rural Damascus, notably al Eid celebrations organized at Al-Faiha’a Sports City Hameh, have resulted in an increased need for med- communal shelter in Damascus, where a group of icine in other UNHCR-supported SARC clinics in Da- refugees was relocated with the support of UNHCR. mascus and Rural Damascus. Some of the accessible @UNHCR/October 2012. facilities, including Al Zahira clinic, have been com- pelled to establish a prioritization system to answer the needs of the most urgent cases. As a special gesture for Eid, UNHCR dispatched 1,000 recreational items to Syria Trust for Development for distribution to children living in communal shelters in Damascus (300 kits) and Aleppo (700).

UNHCR Syria Update — October 2012

Education Refugee operation As part of UNHCR’s Back to School campaign aiming at supporting the enrolment of 40,000 Syrian primary pupils and 17,000 12th grade students, in October the Refugee numbers distribution of 11,500 school kits has started for prima- At the end of September, the number of individuals ry school children in Hassakeh Governorate. The total registered with UNHCR in Syria stood at 94,223, in- for the Governorate will eventually reach 15,000. cluding 85,929 . The verification exercise carried SARC will begin distributing 19,500 school kits in De- out over September and October for food, cash and ra’a in the coming days. The destination of the re- education assistance showed a drastic drop in the maining 9,000 school kits will be decided by the Min- number of beneficiaries approaching the office. A istry of Education based on the most urgent needs. revised count of registered refugees will be available in the first week of November. In the reporting period UNHCR also received the list of destinations from the Ministry of Education for the Material assistance to refugees 17,000 book sets it will provide to 12th grade students in 12 Governorates (all except Sweida and Deir Ez- The verification of food beneficiaries among both zor). Students will exchange the coupons in the stores the Iraqi and non-Iraqi refugee community for cycle attached to the school libraries. Priority governorates 5 (September/October 2012) was completed in Oc- benefitting from this assistance will be Hassakeh, Ha- tober. In total, 44,167 refugees (14,152 families) re- ma, Aleppo, Rural Damascus, Damascus, Idlib and ceived cash for food allowance, worth 3.3 million Homs. USD, against a target of 85,096 individuals (26,262 families), or 52.1% of the target beneficiary popula- tion. Reasons for the drop probably relate to returns to , difficulties reaching the office for security rea- sons and non-receipt of SMS notifications from UN-

UNHCR Syria Update — October 2012

HCR. As a result, the office re-opened the verification Durable solutions exercise for one week to give refugees an additional opportunity to receive their food allowance. Following the release of a Flash Appeal on the reset- tlement needs of 500 non-Iraqi refugees and Palestin- UNHCR also completed the distribution of education ians previously living in Iraq, to date UNHCR Syria has grants to 10,987 children among the Iraqi and non- been offered close to 200 confirmed places by six Iraqi refugee community (5,085 families). This grant, countries: Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, New which replaced in-kind support two years ago, is Zealand, Norway and Sweden. meant to facilitate and encourage the enrolment of children in the 2012-2013 school year. Staff presence and security Between 20 and 25 international staff members were present in the country throughout October, in addi- Protection and community services tion to a national workforce of approximately 330 With regard to refugee movements, observations staff. In an effort to be closer to the needs of the Syri- made by UNHCR teams on the ground and reports ans, UNHCR this month deployed two new national from Outreach Refugee Volunteers indicate that a staff members to Al Nabek on a permanent basis significant number of refugee families have moved and one new international officer to Hassakeh to re- from Aleppo and various areas of Rural Damascus inforce the team. Additional international and na- (Seyda Zainab, Qudsya and Al Hameh) towards safer tional recruitments are on-going. All staff members in neighbourhoods of Rural Damascus (Jaramana, Bar- Aleppo were able to report to the office and re- zeh and Jdaidet al Wadi). Refugee families living in sumed normal working hours in October. Jaramana and Seyda Zainab have complained about increasing food and accommodation prices. Funding Donors continue to respond positively to UNHCR Syr- Training activities are on-going despite the opera- ia’s appeal for financial support to its emergency tional challenges. Some 70 volunteers graduated response to the current crisis in Syria, with 20.8 million from psychological first aid training organized jointly USD recorded to date against a total budget of 41.7 by UNHCR and UNFPA. A group of 210 refugees and million USD (49.9 %). Additional and urgent support is displaced Syrians graduated from the Women De- however needed to procure urgently needed relief velopment’s Centre in various vocational training items ahead of the coming winter. The budget of courses (hairdressing, cooking, sewing, English, Infor- UNHCR Syria refugee programme (114.5 million USD) mation technology etc.). is part of the larger Iraq situation budget (373.2 mil- lion USD), where funding currently stands at 201.8 mil- lion USD (or 54%).

For more informaƟon: UNHCR Syria External relaƟons Unit: [email protected]; +962 79 88 91 307; www.unhcr.org