As the refugee crisis continues, SOS Villages d'Enfants Monde has launched an appeal for donations to help the association continue its actions in Syria and its neighbouring countries.

Each day brings with it new tragedies at sea, with refugees struggling to flee wars and dictatorships in the Middle East and Africa in search of refuge and peace. According to SOS Villages d'Enfants Monde, thousands of Syrians continue to arrive, bringing familes and traumatised children deprived of their fundamental human rights.

SOS Villages began to put concrete measures in places such as Greece, Macedonia, Serbia and Ausrtria in order to provide the specific protection and care urgently needed by unaccompanised children and families. These measures ensure the hospitality, protection, health, safety, food and psychological and emotional support of these people, but with an increasing pressure and influx the association requires its own support in its actions.

Since 2011, the war in Syria has killed more than 240,000 people and displaced almost 12 million. Whilst 7.6 million have been forced to move around inside the country, 4 million have fled to neighbouring countries such as Lebanon and Jordan, where SOS Villages d'Enfants has established emergency programmes for Syrian refugees.

The Syrian branch of SOS Villages d'Enfants has, thanks to its 125 employees, come to the aid of some 300,000 people and has focused on the protection of children, whilst helping internally displaced families to survive inside the country. The local association has welcomed around 200 unaccompanied children in its two temporary car centres in Damascus and has succeeded in reuniting 60 children with their families.

This branch also supports 7,500 children daily at the three reception centres it manages in Damascus and Aleppo and has set up a food aid programme over a range of localities which has seen 10,500 packages distributed to over 4,500 families in Damascus, Rural Damascud, Aleppo, Homs and the coastal region. It has also helped a hundred malnourished children through its nutritional support programme.

Donations can be made to SOS Villages d'Enfants Monde at CCPL LU65 1111 0050 0053 0000 with the mention 'Aide d'Urgence Syrie' or online at www.sosve.lu

Photos by SOS Villages d'Enfants Monde