In the past few weeks, shocking images of hundreds of Syrian asylum-seekers seeking safe haven in Europe have put a face to what the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has described as the “biggest humanitarian emergency of our era.” But back in Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt — five countries where 98 percent of the Syrian refugees live in congested camps under increasingly dire living conditions — global attention on the scale of the human tragedy is dwindling.
As the conflict enters its fifth year, donor fatigue is slowly creeping in: As of September 2015, about two-thirds of U.N. coordinated appeals dedicated to the Syrian crisis remain unfunded. The needs, however, are huge: 4.1 million Syrians — or nearly a fifth of the country’s prewar population — have now sought shelter abroad. And the numbers are climbing.
This isn’t to say that donors have not demonstrated a commendable amount of solidarity with Syrian refugees. Despite an uncoordinated, lurching stance toward those reaching their borders, the European Union and its member states have already disbursed some 3.9 billion euros ($4.4 billion) worth of relief to Syria and its neighboring countries.