In a rented flat, in a poor district of Amman, Mounib Zakiya, plans to take his children and grandchildren from the Jordanian capital to the Turkish coast, to be smuggled into Europe.
He says he is leaving Amman, after three years, for one reason – his meagre aid has been cut off, reports BBC online Friday.
“It is safe here,” said the former estate agent, “and life is good. But we have to buy food and milk for the children. We have to pay for medical care. How can I pay the rent?”
His family of nine was living on about one US dollar (seks DKR) a day per person. Now even that has gone.
He says the United Nations and the international community are forcing him to risk all on the open seas.
“They bear 75 percent of the responsibility,” he said, adding: “They have opened a gate to death, and are making us walk through it.
“It is better to die fast on the journey, than die slowly, watching your kids starve.”
For months the World Food Programme (WFP) has been cutting aid to the bone due to a lack of donations. It reduced the monthly stipend for about 211,000 Syrians by half.
At the beginning of September it went further. Almost 230,000 Syrian refugees – living in cities, not camps – had their aid stopped entirely. Help is still being provided for 100,000 living in camps, but there, too, funds could run out in November.
Aid workers say that if refugees cannot get help where they are, they will risk their lives to find it elsewhere, notes BBC.
“If people were receiving enough assistance and were able to have a somewhat stable life where they are, they would not make that decision,” said the WFP’s Dina El-Kassaby.
