Sunday Times 2
Syria crisis: UN launches largest ever aid appeal
View(s):DAMASCUS, June 8 (AFP) – The United Nations has launched a record aid appeal for Syria, warning of a regional “explosion” if the fighting does not stop, as regime forces sought to capitalise on recent victories over the rebels.
UN refugee agency head Antonio Guterres (Reuters)
The UN was also scrambling to find replacement troops for its peacekeeping mission on the Golan Heights after heavy fighting between Syrian forces and rebels on Thursday prompted Austria to announce it was pulling out. The world body said Friday that a total of $3.8 billion is needed to help Syrian refugees who have spilled across the country’s borders to escape fighting at home.
The figure for operations inside Syria was put at another $1.4 billion. “If the fighting doesn’t stop, we risk an explosion in the Middle East for which the international community is not prepared,” UN refugee agency head Antonio Guterres told reporters.
“It is not only a matter of generosity but also of enlightened self-interest.”
More than 94,000 people have been killed and some 1.6 million Syrians fled the country since the civil war began in March 2011 after President Bashar al-Assad’s cracked down on protests against his regime, according to The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Syria regime says it takes last rebel bastion
DAMASCUS, June 8 (AFP) -Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have now seized all of the Qusayr area in central Syria, state television reported Saturday, as the United Nations launched a record aid appeal for refugees.
Saturday’s seizure of Eastern Bweida village, the last rebel bastion in the area, brought the entire Qusayr region near the border with Lebanon back under regime control.
It came four days after Qusayr, a strategically key town for both the regime and the rebels which had been in insurgent hands for a year, fell to the army and forces from Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah movement.
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