UN delivers winter supplies for displaced Syrian children
(Vatican Radio) UNICEF, the UN Children's Fund, says it was urgently mobilizing more
than 100,000 children's clothing kits along with other winter supplies for displaced
children in Syria and surrounding areas. Meanwhile, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR) says it has delivered vital aid packages to some 60,300 families across Syria
benefiting more than 300,000 people. UNHCR Spokesperson Adrian Edwards says the agency
aims to provide such assistance to half a million people, or about 100,000 families
by the end of the year. "Across the region, meanwhile, the number of Syrian refugees
in surrounding countries who have registered now stands at 442,256 -- an increase
of more than 213,000 since the beginning of September. This figure does not include
the hundreds of thousands more Syrians who have not come forward at this stage for
registration." The World Health Organization (WHO), meanwhile, says many hospitals
and health facilities have been destroyed or partly damaged in rural Damascus. The
agency says information provided by the Syrian ministry of health shows that 44 out
of 88 public hospitals have been damaged out of which 23 are out of service. Listen
to regional correspondent Nathan Morley’s full report: