ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The United Nations Children’s Funds’ (UNICEF) said Thursday that a European humanitarian aid agency has contributed over two million euros to its Syria programmes to help the war-town country’s vulnerable children and their families. UNICEF said in a statement that with the €2 million ($2.3 million) funding from the European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid (ECHO), it “will be able to reach more than 126,000 children and their caregivers with essential protection, education, water and sanitation services as well as life-saving cash transfers to the most vulnerable families.” “Over a decade into the conflict in Syria, the humanitarian needs of more than 13.4 million people in the country - 6.1 million of them children - are being compounded by the day,” said UNICEF Representative in Syria, Bo Viktor Nylund. “The continued, substantial support from the European Union has helped us to meet our commitments towards vulnerable children and families in Syria and ensure they can access critical services.” The ECHO’s total funding to the UNICEF has reached over €55 million since 2016, including to the Thursday one, according to the UN agency. According to data from the ECHO’s website, the total EU assistance to the Syria crisis has reached more than €24.9 billion since 2011 while its assistance to the war-town country in 2021 was €130 million. UNICEF said in March that nearly 2.45 million children in Syria as well 750,000 other Syrian children who live in the neighboring countries are out of school, adding that 90 percent of the country’s children need support “as violence, economic crisis and COVID-19 pandemic push families to the brink.” Syrians rose up against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in March 2011, demanding an end to the rule of the Assad family who have been in power for half a century.
