Refugees Fleeing Syria are ‘Mostly Kids,’ Many Traveling on Their Own
A Syrian refugee girl stands with her mother outside their friend’s house at the Syrian-Turkish border town of Ceylanpinar, Sanliurfa province, December 6, 2012. REUTERS/Laszlo Balogh (TURKEY – Tags: CIVIL UNREST MILITARY CONFLICT POLITICS SOCIETY IMMIGRATION)
War has sent more than a half a million refugees fleeing Syria into Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Turkey and North Africa in recent months.
Melissa Fleming, the chief spokesperson for the UNHCR says thousands of refugees are arriving each day, often including children traveling on their own, arriving in a freezing rain.
“People are arriving frozen. They just have the clothes on their back. They’re arriving with babies. Kids are coming without their parents,” Fleming says. “Children who have seen their friends die in front of them. Children who say they don’t have any friends anymore because they all died… It’s really hard to fathom how a child can go through that, and go on.”