One Photo Captures the Depth of Humanitarian Crisis in Syria

Hundreds of men, women and children fight to get to the front of the queue as a refugee camp in Damascus receives food parcels after being cut off for months. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) called on rebel forces and Al-Assad’s troops alike to allow ‘safe and unhindered humanitarian access to thousands of civilians in Yarmouk, a Palestinian district in the Syrian capital. Yarmouk has seen some of the worst fighting in the capital, leading to severe food shortages and widespread hunger.

The organization is predicting that the number of displaced Syrians will pass four million by the end of 2014. Opposition activists say more than 140,000 people have died in the conflict, which enters its fourth year next month. The U.N. says 9.3 million Syrians are in need of humanitarian assistance. The number of Afghan refugees was 2.6 million at the end of 2012, UNHCR says. Syrians, with nearly 2.5 million registered as refugees, should overtake that long before the end of the year. About one-half of the refugees are children.

‘It breaks my heart to see this nation that for decades welcomed refugees from other countries ripped apart and forced into exile itself,’ Guterres told the U.N. General Assembly. Just five years ago, Syria hosted the world's second-largest number of refugees, he said.

Syria's neighbors now plead for assistance as hundreds or thousands of people flee into their countries every day. The number of Syrian refugees now registered in far smaller Lebanon, for example, is the equivalent of having 71 million of them registered in the United States or almost 15 million in France, Guterres said.

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