Syria accounts for the world’s largest number of forcibly displaced people with over half of its population forced to flee.
There are over 5.5 million registered Syrian refugees and more than six million people displaced inside Syria. Syria accounts for the world’s largest number of forcibly displaced people with over half of its population forced to flee.
Most of the more than 5.5 million Syrians who are now refugees are hosted in just five neighbouring countries: Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt. Turkey alone hosts over three million Syrian refugees. Approximately one in four people in Lebanon is a Syrian refugee.
Nine in 10 Syrian refugees live in rural and urban host communities in neighbouring countries. In Jordan, 80 per cent of Syrian refugees living outside of camps are living below the poverty line. In Lebanon, nearly 60 per cent of Syrian refugee families live in abject poverty with less than US$2.87 per person per day.
Syrian families everywhere continue to demonstrate their courage and resilience, making huge sacrifices to put their children’s needs first, turning their temporary shelters into homes, showing their entrepreneurial spirit and their deep desire to rebuild their lives with hope and dignity.
Inside Syria, one in four schools have been damaged, destroyed or used for shelter. Less than half of primary school aged children are enrolled in school but more worrying, a mere fraction of secondary and university aged students have access to education.
In 2017, around 655,000 people who had been displaced inside Syria returned home. About 70,000 refugees also returned from neighbouring countries. Many of those now returning have spent years on the move, and are going back to damaged homes in neighbourhoods without power or running water, sometime with hope to rebuild, sometimes because they have little choice. During the same period, at least 1.8 million Syrians fled their homes, often because of ongoing fighting, and remain displaced inside the country.
As the conflict drags on, so do the struggles of families displaced inside Syria or beyond its borders. In the world, more refugees come from Syria than any other country. Despite the persisting, immense scale of the crisis, it risks becoming another forgotten emergency.
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