Tag Archives: Syria

As part of the Change for Good campaign, Aer Lingus has this week launched a special collection on all flights to raise funds for UNICEF’s Syrian appeal. Change for Good is the UNICEF in-flight collection of unused foreign notes and coins to raise funds for vulnerable children around the world. As the conflict in Syria enters its fifth year, 14 million children are in need of humanitarian support, making this the single biggest humanitarian crisis since World War Two. The situation of more than 5.6 million children inside Syria remains the most desperate. Almost two million Syrian children have fled and are living as refugees most of them in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan. The scale of this crisis is unprecedented; the total number of Syrian children in need of assistance is 15 times what it was in 2012. UNICEF Ireland Executive Director, Peter Power said, “While visiting the Syrian-Lebanese border, I witnessed first hand the appalling and inhumane conditions in …

The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, chaired by Deputy Pat Breen, will meet Dr Nader Hashemi on this Wednesday to discuss the on-going civil war in Syria and the rise of Islamic State there and in the remainder of the Middle East. Dr Nader Hashemi is Associate Professor at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver. Chairman of the committee, Pat Breen said, “The Committee has been gravely concerned at the continued actions of Al-Assad’s regime and of other extremist militias, as well as the rise of the radical Jihadist force ISIS, which has resulted in a further deterioration in an already precarious human rights situation in Syria. Tomorrow, we will have an opportunity to hear from Dr Nader Hashemi, who will outline the roots of ISIS and the threat that their rise is posing a global security challenge. We will also have an opportunity to consider with him at tomorrow’s meeting the most …

KILMALEY man Eamonn Meehan, executive director of Trocaire, met with Pope Francis in Rome last month during a meeting of overseas development agencies about the crisis in Syria. “We have a huge moral authority and we should use it and not accept or let anyone else accept that this war be left to just play itself out,” Eamonn Meehan said at the meeting. Pope Francis agreed with him saying that many refugees in Syria were suffering. “We must accept with great sorrow that the Syrian crisis has not been resolved, but instead continues, and there is the risk of growing accustomed to it and of forgetting the victims claimed on a daily basis, the unspeakable suffering, the thousands of refugees, which include the elderly and children, who suffer and at times die of hunger and of diseases causes by the conditions of war,” Pope Francis said. Trócaire had been supporting local partners in the region since March 2012. Donations from …