THE SYRIAN ADRIFT WITHOUT ACNUR

It was one of those stories told with a quiet and restrained gesture. The shivering little three year old walked aimlessly in the dark cold night. He was alone, helpless. His sight was heartbreaking. It was not possible not to pick him up and comfort him. He had lost his family in the midst of hundreds of thousands of people walking through the snowy mountains in their quest for a save refuge across the border. Terrified and in shock he could not even remember his name. He was lucky. A young man picked him up and nursed him until he found his family months later. But tens of thousands of children, elderly and sick were left behind, homeless at night with no blankets and no food.

Fortunately, some NGOs, including UNHCR, managed to reach and assist them. They were my, but also your, ultimately, our kind: Iraqi Kurds, Afghans, Bosnians, Guatemalans, Saharans, Sudanese, etc ... people like us who due to natural disasters, armed conflicts or political repression were forced to leave their homes to save their lives.

Today the crisis plagues UNHCR, just when the number of refugees is growing. If in 1994 there were 27 million refugees in 2010 they rose to 34. With a debt of $51 million ACNUR has been forced to leave Gaza and soon will have to stop aid to more than one million Syrians refugees abroad. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, the displaced within Syria are four million but the situation of half a million Palestinians who were in this country is also precarious. Therefore is urgent not only to prevent a humanitarian crisis but a further ignition of despair in the Middle East.

Jordan has not enough space nor funds or material resources to meet the human avalanche that is overcrowding its camps and given the insecurity in Iraq refugees are at equal or greater risk than at home. While the international community does not take effective measures to help the Syrians their situation deteriorates hopelessly. And if a war is hard to end, much harder it is to recover a population and rebuild a country.