According to MSF, 80 percent of the 4 million people in northwest Syria are women and children, who lack access to healthcare support including vital sexual and reproductive services. Over the last year, various health facilities and projects have downscaled their activities or closed altogether after losing funding, the international humanitarian medical NGO warned in a statement on Wednesday.
In Syria’s conflict setting, “even the normal stages in a woman’s life, such as menstruation, pregnancy, or breastfeeding, become a complex burden”, Teresa Graceffa, Medical Coordinator for MSF in Syria, said as she sought to draw attention to the urgent need for greater support.
During the conflict, hundreds of medical facilities have been damaged or destroyed with medical staff either killed or forced to flee the country. Essential medicine and medical supplies are often unavailable, MSF continued, with potentially devastating consequences for access to essential services for pregnant women, girls and newborn babies.
While MSF has stepped up its activities in the northwest and northeast regions, the NGO says there is still a significant gap in the humanitarian response to women’s health services. “Women in northwest Syria need long-term quality provision of sexual and reproductive health services to have a chance to lead healthy lives. Now is certainly not the time to let them down,” Faisal Omar, MSF head of mission for Syria, added.
The poverty rate in Syria is an unprecedented 90 percent and over 14 million people in Syria depend on humanitarian aid, a report released last month by the UN Syria Commission into the country’s human rights situation over the last six months of 2021 found.
On Monday, four children aged between 12 and 15 years old were killed as they made their way to school in Syria’s northwest province of Idlib as regime forces shelled their rebel-held town, Maarat al-Naasan, on the frontline of the Assad regime.
