UNFPA warns of grave risks for women, girls crossing from Lebanon into Syria
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) warned on Tuesday that thousands of women and girls fleeing escalating violence in the Middle East are crossing from Lebanon into Syria under dangerous conditions, facing serious health and protection risks upon arrival.
In a press release, the UNFPA said that more than 147,000 people have entered Syria from Lebanon since early March 2026, part of a broader wave of returns that has seen an estimated 1.5 million people re-enter Syria from neighboring countries since December 2024.
Among the new arrivals are over 2,200 pregnant women, with at least 260 expected to give birth within the next month.
Many are arriving in areas where health and protection systems have been severely weakened by more than 15 years of conflict.
The UNFPA added that women and girls are often crossing the border without personal belongings and are being hosted in overcrowded locations with limited sanitation services.
These conditions, according to the UNFPA, increase the risk of gender-based violence, harassment and exploitation, especially as rising fuel prices and the cost of essential goods push vulnerable families into deeper economic hardship.
The agency indicated that the situation is compounded by earlier displacement inside Syria. In January 2026, intense clashes in Aleppo, Raqqa, Hasakah and Deir ez-Zor displaced around 173,000 people, more than half of them women and girls, disrupting access to health and protection services.
Deep funding cuts are further limiting the humanitarian response. The UNFPA reported that since early 2025, nearly 31 percent of facilities it supports in Syria have been forced to close, reducing access to essential reproductive health care and protection services for women and girls at a time of growing need.
“As women and girls flee one crisis only to face another, we cannot look away,” said Enshrah Ahmed, UNFPA Representative in Syria. “Without urgent support, thousands of women and girls face childbirth without care, violence without protection, and crisis without hope.”
The UNFPA called for immediate funding to expand emergency reproductive health and protection services along the Lebanon–Syria border, where mobile teams are currently providing medical assistance, protection support and hygiene kits despite limited resources.