AMMAN (Dispatches) – The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned that 85 percent of Syrian refugee children in Jordan live in poverty, having a difficult time in satisfying their most "basic needs.”
According to figures announced by the UN agency on Sunday, some 38 percent of Syrian refugee children are also not in school and almost half of those under the age of five do not have access to proper healthcare.
The findings, which were based on interviews by hundreds of families among Jordan’s 660,000 registered Syrian refugees, showed that refugee children "are facing a more challenging time in meeting their minimum basic needs,” said Robert Jenkins, the UNICEF’s Jordan representative.
According to official figures, the overall number of registered and unregistered Syrian refugees in the Arab Kingdom stands at about 1.3 million.
Around 5.5 million Syrians have fled the foreign-backed militancy in their homeland since 2011, most of whom living in neighboring countries where they desperately struggle to survive.
The UN children agency in Jordan lacks some $145.7 million for child programs in 2018, said Jenkins, urging donor countries to step up at a time of growing need.
Jordan on Sunday welcomed a resolution by the UN Security Council urging Syria to provide urgent aid to the refugees, including those stranded in the Rukban area near the Jordan-Syrian border.
Jordan's Minister of State for Media Affairs Mohammad Momani said the UN resolution is in line with Jordan's stance that it is the responsibility of Syria to provide aid to the Syrians in Rukban, the state-run Petra news agency reported.
In the resolution, the UN Security Council expressed its concerns about the humanitarian situation of the internally displaced persons in Rukban, while highlighting the need to ensure humanitarian access to the area.
It reiterated its grave distress at the worsening humanitarian situation in Syria, including in Eastern Ghouta near the capital Damascus, Idlib governorate, Northern Hama governorate, Rukban and Raqqa.