Tag Archives: Syrian crisis

BGR Provides Emergency Donations to Help Syrian Refugees

BGR Staff 

ALEPPO, SYRIA - FEBRUARY 11: A Syrian 2 year old baby Zehra and Eye Halip, who fled bombing in Aleppo, are seen with their mother Belkiz Halip at a tent city close to the Bab al-Salam border crossing on Turkish-Syrian border near Azaz town of Aleppo, Syria on February 11, 2016. Russian airstrikes have recently forced some 40,000 people to flee their homes in Syrias northern city of Aleppo. (Photo by Fatih Aktas/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

A Syrian 2 year old baby Zehra and Eye Halip, who fled bombing in Aleppo, are seen with their mother Belkiz Halip at a tent city close to the Bab al-Salam border crossing on Turkish-Syrian border near Azaz town of Aleppo, Syria on February 11, 2016. Russian airstrikes have recently forced some 40,000 people to flee their homes in Syrias northern city of Aleppo. (Photo by Fatih Aktas/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

In late August, Buddhist Global Relief made emergency donations of $5,000 each to two respected aid organizations assisting refugees fleeing from the fighting in Syria. One is Oxfam America; the other is CARE. Driven from their homes, many families daily risk their lives in a dangerous flight for safety. Millions of refugees from Syria and other Middle Eastern countries– many of them children – travel long distances to other lands where they hope to find a place of safety and refuge. Hundreds of thousands of displaced people, both within Syria and outside, are in critical need of adequate food, shelter, healthcare, and warm clothes.

BGR’s donations to CARE and Oxfam will:

  • Deliver food baskets, baby items, and other emergency essentials to families cut off from supplies.
  • Provide access to clean water, including water purification tablets for individual families.
  • Increase access to health care for pregnant women and communities affected by conflict.

Readers who wish to help Syrian refugees should contribute directly to these two organizations, or to other organizations with a similar mission, rather than to Buddhist Global Relief.

BGR Responds to Syrian Refugee Crisis

Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

Syria’s civil war is said to be one of the worst humanitarian disasters of our time. The brutal war has raged for four years, and any resolution of the conflict still seems as remote as when the fighting first erupted. The war has resulted in the deaths of 220,000 people, half of whom are believed to be civilians. Bombings have destroyed crowded cities and horrific human rights violations are widespread. Basic necessities like food and medical care are sparse. According to reports from Syrian refugees, children are becoming increasingly hungry due to cuts in the amount of food being provided to them.

More than 11 million people have been displaced thus far. The UN estimates that 7.6 million people are displaced internally. The others, approximatey 4 million, have fled across the borders. The majority of Syrian refugees are living in Jordan and Lebanon. These are countries with weak infrastructure whose limited resources are nearing a breaking point under the strain. In August 2013, more Syrians escaped into northern Iraq at a newly opened border crossing. Now they are trapped by that country’s own insurgent conflict, and Iraq is struggling to meet the needs of Syrian refugees on top of more than one million internally displaced Iraqis.
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