“Over 80 percent of those we intend to help are in countries mired in conflict where brutality and violence have had a devastating impact on their lives,” UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos said in a statement.
The UN says crises in Central African Republic, Iraq, South Sudan and Syria are “top humanitarian priorities” in 2015, while it is also concerned about Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, the Palestinian Authority, Somalia, Sudan, Ukraine and Yemen.
Peaceful protests began in Syria in March 2011 and quickly descended into all-out fighting between government forces, rebels and jihadists, some of them linked to al-Qaeda. According to UN estimates, the ongoing civil war has already claimed more than 200,000 lives and forced as many as 3 million more to flee their homes.
