Updated 8 May 2013
As the current crisis in Syria continues to escalate, the figures provided by the UN in February 2013 stated that during the last two years, over 80,000 people have been killed and more than 860,000 individuals have been displaced from their homes. Out of these 860,000 people, 97% are in the neighbouring countries of Iraq, Jordon, Lebanon and Turkey.
The latest figures in May 2013 stated that the number of individuals displaced from their homes is now well over £1.2m. In an interview with The Guardian newspaper, António Guterres, who has led the UNHCR through a number of refugee crises, including in Afghanistan and Iraq said: "I don't remember any other crisis where we are having 8,000 per day [fleeing across borders], every day since February. There will very likely be 3.5 million by the end of the year. We will have half the population of Syria in dire need of assistance and this is incomprehensible.”
The World Federation is already supporting a number of families currently in Lebanon who have been displaced as a result of the current situation in Syria.
A number of micro-financing projects are also being supported to allow individuals to re-start their own businesses that had been lost when they left Syria and to begin earning independently again.
We have provided below some examples of projects that we would InshAllah like to support and raise funds for:
1. An Afghanistan passport holder with a Lebanese wife and two children are now living in Nabatiyya. He was from the Syeda Zainab area where he was a self-employed electrician. He has found employment as an electrician but the salary is not enough to sustain him. A loan of $10,000 will get him started in his own business;
2. A widow with three sons has requested $2,500 to start a tailoring business in Maroun al ras in south Lebanon. She has experience in dressmaking from Syria;
3. Taxi plate Number for an individual to work as taxi driver in Beirut ($600); and
4. To start up a mobile and I-phone maintenance shop by a Pakistani family ($4,000). The father is 84 yrs old and the elder son has previous experience and was running a similar shop in Syria. The other brother and sister are studying.
These families in Lebanon need your help - please donate today