Relief efforts in Syria trying to keep pace, U.N. humanitarian aid chief says

"Relief efforts are failing to keep pace with the scale of the emergency in Syria, where the death toll has risen to nearly 70,000, the U.N.'s head of humanitarian operations said on Wednesday," the Guardian reports. "Baroness Valerie Amos said the U.N. and its partners were struggling to cope with the number of refugees fleeing Syria and the four million people inside the country who need help, including two million who have left their homes," the newspaper adds.

Last month, international donors pledged $1.5 billion in humanitarian aid, according to the Guardian, which notes "Amos said the [U.N.] had partners operating in a difficult security environment, but not nearly enough." The newspaper continues, "She acknowledged criticism from the Syrian opposition that aid was not getting enough to its areas and said the U.N. was working with the opposition's humanitarian arm on ways to extend operations inside Syria" (Tran, 2/13). On Tuesday, the U.N. News Centre reported that the U.N. "World Food Programme (WFP) is feeding more than 7,000 Syrian refugees in Egypt through a newly launched food voucher operation that is underway in other parts of the region" (2/12).