UNRWA: $53 Million Needed for Palestinians in Syria

The United Nations relief agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said Monday it needs $53 million (41 million euros) in donations to provide aid to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in war-torn Syria.

"We have around 300,000 to 500,000 (Palestinian) people who have been impacted by the conflict, and they require humanitarian assistance," UNRWA director for Syria Michael Kingsley told a news conference in Jordan's Dead Sea region.

"The number is rising and we expect it to go even higher," he added.

"In Syria we have an ongoing appeal for $53 million for six months," UNRWA head Filippo Grandi said, adding that the agency faced a shortfall of $68 million (52 million euros) in its funding for next year.

"We still need more contributions especially from the Arab region. Then we have special needs that the result from the emergencies we have in Gaza and Syria."

UNRWA says around 510,000 Palestinian refugees live in Syria, whose 20-month-old conflict has killed more than 40,000 people, according to monitors. Most of them live in the Damascus region.

Established to help Palestinians who lost their homes in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, the agency works to help around five million refugees registered in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and the West Bank.

It relies almost entirely on donations from U.N. member states, and its budget for 2012 to 2013 is almost $1.3 billion (1 billion euros).