UN says over 160,000 Syrians were displaced last month

By Fatih Erel

GENEVA

Over 160,000 people have been displaced by fighting in Syria since May 1, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the situation remained fluid.

Over 87,000 of these displacements occured to the Raqqah governorate where over 400,000 people “have been exposed to daily fighting and airstrikes,” the UN added.

Aleppo saw 37,000 displacements, Idlib 87,200 and smaller groups were displaced to Hama, Deir ez-Zor and Homs.

“There are particular concerns about the situation in Raqqah city, with reports of increased shortages of food and medical supplies," the OCHA added.

A U.S.-backed operation to liberate Syria’s Raqqah from Daesh started on Friday.

The UN has been calling for “unconditional, unimpeded and sustained access to the more than 4.5 million people in besieged and hard-to-reach locations” across Syria.

According to UN, there are more than five million Syrian refugees in neighboring countries and of these, some three million are in Turkey.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests -- which erupted as part of the Arab Spring uprisings -- with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, more than 250,000 people have been killed and more than six million displaced across the war-torn country, according to the UN.