The United Nations has appealed for a record USD 16.4 billion in humanitarian aid to help almost 60 million people across the globe next year.
UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Valerie Amos said on Monday that USD 7.2 billion of the requested fund would be allocated to cover the needs of 18.2 million people suffering from the conflict in Syria.
She added that USD 1.2 billion is also planned to help an estimated 5.2 million people in need across Iraq.
The 2015 request, on behalf of 455 aid organizations, is expected to provide relief aid for a number of other countries such as the Central African Republic (CAR), South Sudan, Afghanistan, Congo, Myanmar, Somalia, Ukraine, Yemen, and the occupied Palestinian territories.
“The rising scale of need is outpacing our capacity to respond," the UN official said, adding that some 102 million people are currently in need of aid worldwide.
The appeal, however, does not include the needs in ten African nations as they will be addressed in a separate appeal in February next year.
The amount, however, dwarfs the USD-12.9-billion requested last December in the initial appeal for 2014.
“Today’s needs are at unprecedented levels, and without more support there simply is no way to respond to the humanitarian situations we’re seeing in region after region and in conflict after conflict,” Amos further pointed out.
