Aid agencies struggle to keep focus on Syria’s war

Three years on since the first protests against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and with the flow of refugees into neighbors countries in no way abating, aid organizations are struggling to draw attention to what they describe as the worst humanitarian challenge in a generation. Lebanon as host country of the largest number of refugee – close to one million – gets much less financial support from the international community than needed. Worst of all,  Syrian children bear the brunt of the war’s impact. These were take-home points from a press conference that two UN agencies and three international aid organizations held Saturday in Beirut. Stories about the suffering of Syrian refugee children and testimonials about their resilience were the main focuses of the press conference, which culminated in a call for justice by Anthony Lake, executive director of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and a former US diplomat and national