Humanitarian crisis in Syria grows as conflict continues, officials warn

"International relief officials reported an increasingly grim aid crisis stemming from the Syria conflict on Tuesday, with two million people there not getting desperately needed help, and a sudden acceleration of refugees overwhelming the ability of neighboring countries to absorb them," the New York Times reports. "In the province of Homs, so many doctors have fled that only three surgeons remained to serve a population of two million, the officials said," according to the newspaper. "The World Health Organization said that a United Nations mission to Homs last week had found that more than half a million people needed aid, including health care, food and water," it writes, adding, "The mission found that the biggest hospital in Homs had been destroyed, and that only six of the 12 public hospitals and eight of the 32 private hospitals were still functional." The newspaper notes, "At the United Nations, the head of UNICEF and the European Union's top relief official said that only about one-third of the three million people in Syria who needed help were getting any, and that combatants on both sides would be held responsible for respecting international law protecting civilians during war" (Cumming-Bruce/MacFarquhar, 9/11).