“The United Nations children’s agency is scaling up its assistance to thousands of Syrian refugee children and their families in the Kurdistan region of Iraq where tens of thousands of families arrived in recent weeks,” the U.N. News Centre reports. “A plane carrying 100 tons of supplies — including water tanks, latrine equipment, school materials and temporary schools — landed yesterday evening in Erbil, the U.N. Children’s Fund said in a news release,” the news service writes (9/2). “These items come in addition to 12 trucks of supplies, carrying primarily hygiene kits for over 50,000 people, that arrived earlier this week from UNICEF’s warehouse hub in Mersin, Turkey, as well as an additional four trucks of emergency materials that arrived from Baghdad, Iraq,” according to the UNICEF news release (9/1).

“In a briefing to reporters in Geneva [on Friday], officials from the World Food Programme (WFP), the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), [WHO], and [UNICEF] all said they would continue to carry out their operations and deliver basic supplies and services to those affected by the conflict,” the U.N. News Centre notes in a separate article. “UNICEF spokesperson Patrick McCormick said that despite the rise in tension the agency and its partners were on the ground delivering essential services for children and their families, and would continue their efforts to meet existing and new needs,” the news service adds (8/30). “The head of the U.N. refugee agency in Syria says seven million Syrians, or almost one-third of the population, have been displaced by the country’s civil war,” the Associated Press/Politico writes, adding, “Tarik Kurdi told [the AP] on Monday that five million of the displaced are still in Syria while about two million have fled to neighboring countries. He says two million children are among those directly affected by the war” (9/2).