10 Years of Suffering in Syria
Children are growing up never knowing what four walls and a warm bed feels like. They often have no school, instead, they run barefoot through muddy lanes in winter or get eaten alive by sand flies in the summer. Fathers go out each day looking for work and come back with nothing. A mother starves herself to feed her older children only to have her breastmilk dry up. COVID-19 barely registers in their minds when the looming lack of food and shelter stares them down each day.
This is what ten years of war has done to a society of farmers and working-class folks who lived in this rustic part of Syria. Those with education and skills have made their way out to other parts, leaving the most poor and desperate behind.
Mercy-USA for Aid and Development has been on the ground in Syria since 2012. We provide food, shelter, winter heat, nutrition support and healthcare. This assistance includes covering the daily food needs for approximately 250,000 individuals living in northwestern Syria. We also operate a stationary health clinic, as well as mobile health and nutrition teams that provide outreach care to the most vulnerable in the camps–women and their young children. We run a comprehensive winterization campaign each year, providing warm clothes, boots and coats to children, the disabled and the elderly; we distribute stoves and fuel in an effort to keep pace with the growing demand for warmth in uninsulated tent homes. Work that we hoped by now would transition into sustainable development projects has only deepened to respond to a seemingly never-ending crisis response. Thankfully, individual donors and major partners like the World Food Programme (WFP), USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA), the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and other United Nations granting agencies support Mercy-USA’s mission to continue to help in Syria where help is most needed.
Your donation of $110 will feed an entire family for a month in Syria.
$25 feeds a child for a month in Syria!
$40 provides winter clothing for a child, disabled or elderly adult.
The Impact of your donation seen through Um Khaled’s family story.
Um Khaled and her husband were forced to make the decision leave their home to protect their little ones from harm. The mother of six said, ”About six years ago, the bombing and shelling in our area was no longer bearable, so we came to a small town in the countryside where a kind man gave us a room to stay in and asked nothing in return”.
They felt safe for six year until three months ago the tiny town was repeatedly targeted with bombing, forcing the family to flee. “We carried just our vital needs and headed to this camp. We learned that three days after we left the small room we lived in, it was bombed and everything we left there was destroyed.”
Though Um Khaled is discouraged to end up living in a tattered tent, she’s grateful they left before any harm came to her six children.
Her husband takes on any work he can find, however, without contacts and friends, jobs are hard to find in the camp and pay little. “We’ve been through weeks where he did not have a job and we had to depend totally on humanitarian relief,” Um Khaled said. Her 15-year-old daughter also has had to take any agricultural work she can find to help the family survive.
Now, Mercy-USA gives a monthly food voucher to Um Khaled’s family. She’s able to purchase the food she needs to feed her large family and not worry if there will be work for her husband or daughter. Families like Um Khaled’s are receiving these food vouchers and for many, this program is the difference between suffering and survival. “It’s a great help and we feel lucky to be able to receive this help. We’re very grateful to everyone who makes it possible.”
Your donation makes reliable monthly food aid for families like Um Khaled’s possible. Mercy-USA for Aid and Development distributes food aid to approximately 250,000 people in Syria every month, but we can’t do it without your support.
