It was near midnight. We were driving in the desert with no headlights, and Syria was 20 feet to my left. To the right was a mass of shapes -- it took me a minute to realize I was looking at 850 Syrians who had just crossed safely into Jordan. One man was carrying designer luggage normally seen in airplane cabins; one girl had no shoes. I walked amongst these scared, war-numbed people, and it hit me that this was only a tiny portion of those leaving Syria.
Roughly 763,000 people have fled Syria -- 240,000 to Jordan -- and an estimated 2.5 million are displaced internally. Before that night, those numbers seemed horrific, but had little real meaning to me. They are round statistics, indicators of an escalating war. But after hearing a woman recall her husband's death and a family describe their village being leveled by barrels of explosives, I better understood the scale… more »
U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford, Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration Anne C. Richard, and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Assistant Administrator for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance Nancy Lindborg visited a refugee camp for Syrians in Turkey. While there, they met with Turkish partners and assistance providers to discuss the needs of Syrian refugees and ongoing humanitarian assistance efforts.
The U.S. delegation commended the generosity of the Government of Turkey and the Turkish… more »
Today, U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford; Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration Anne Richard; and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Assistant Administrator for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance, Nancy Lindborg traveled to Ankara, Turkey to address the humanitarian situation in and around Syria. Ambassador Ford said:
"...We've had a busy couple of days. Yesterday, we were at the Syrian refugee camp of Islahiye down on the Turkish-Syrian border. We met a lot of people and heard stories of their suffering, of losing family members, houses destroyed. We talked about what we are doing, providing tents, providing food both to people in camps like the one we saw, but also inside… more »
Our "Photo of the Week" comes to us from Laurens Vermeire, a public affairs colleague accompanying a State Department and USAID delegation to Turkey and Jordan. The delegation includes U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford; Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration Anne Richard; and USAID Assistant Administrator for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance Nancy Lindborg.
The photograph shows the delegation's visit to the Islahiye Refugee Camp for Syrians near the Syrian-Turkish border in Turkey on January 24, 2013. During the visit, the delegation members spent several hours talking with camp residents… more »
I am pleased to announce that I'll be visiting the region this week with colleagues from the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. We'll visit Turkey and Jordan to see the conditions of Syrian refugees.
At the same time, we'll sit with governments, international organizations and NGOs working to help the Syrian refugees.
I also hope to have the opportunity to meet with many Syrians and hear directly from them about their circumstances.
Last week, when I was in Jordan, I was watching television and I saw a report on Al Arabiya about a Syrian father and his daughter, a young child, who died from the bitter cold -- a very tragic story that affected me deeply. I shared this story when I returned to Washington, and I think… more »
I have to agree with Karen in Turkey -- I too, was shocked at how invisible the State Department, the White House and President Obama were regarding the…
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I was shocked at how invisible the State Department and White House were with this event -- the single largest coordinated event in the history of the world.…
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Withdrawal from Afghanistan is an overwhelming sentiment of Americans. That President has to respond to it is understandable. But so long as US has not relinquished…
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On February 19, the State Department will host a conference on "Food Security and Minimizing Postharvest Loss: Markets, Applied Research, and Innovation." more »
Secretary Kerry (Feb. 15): "We need to understand the connection of all of these things to our security, to our business opportunities, to our economic future, to America's leadership role in the world." more »
![A Syrian refugee stands on top of a water tank at Zaatari refugee camp, near the Syrian border in Mafraq, Jordan, January 9, 2013. [AP File Photo]](https://cybercemetery.unt.edu/archive/oilspill/20130216233626im_/http://blogs.state.gov/images/Dipnote/behind_the_scenes/2013_0210_syria_refugees_m.jpg)
![USAID Assistant Administrator for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance Nancy Lindborg interacts with Syrian refugees at Islahiye Refugee Camp in Turkey on January 24, 2013. [State Department photo/ Public Domain]](https://cybercemetery.unt.edu/archive/oilspill/20130216233626im_/http://blogs.state.gov/images/Dipnote/behind_the_scenes/2013_0125_lindborg_turkey_syria_m.jpg)
![Syrian refugees look out of a vehicle's window just after crossing the border from Syria to Turkey, in Cilvegozu, Turkey, December 20, 2012. [AP Photo]](https://cybercemetery.unt.edu/archive/oilspill/20130216233626im_/http://blogs.state.gov/images/Dipnote/behind_the_scenes/2013_0122_syria_refugees_in_turkey_m.jpg)
