Ove one million Syrians displaced in 2 weeks: UN

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA ) said in a statement that most of the newly displaced are women and children. The figures include data from when the fighting between Syrian government forces and armed opposition groups began to escalate late last month.

“As of 12 December, 1.1 million people have been newly displaced across the country since the start of the escalation of hostilities on 27 November. The majority are women and children,” the statement read.

The OCHA noted nearly 640,000 people have fled the Aleppo governorate, while hundreds of thousands of others left Idlib and Hama over the past few days.

It added that more than 400,000 people are currently in hundreds of collective shelters in northeastern Syria, receiving humanitarian aid, including food, hygiene kits, and psychological support.

Militants waged a surprise two-pronged attack on Syria’s Aleppo and the countryside around Idlib on November 27.

Soon afterward, they seized control of several major Syrian cities, including Hama, Homs, Dara’a, and Suwayda, before entering the capital Damascus.

On Sunday, armed groups, led by HTS militants, announced that they had fully captured Damascus, and confirmed reports of the fall of Bashar Assad’s government.