Some 6.9 million Syrian children urgently need humanitarian assistance, UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said Wednesday. That’s the scale of need facing the UN agency as it works with the Syrian government and local partners to rebuild child-support systems and restore essential services across the country.
Russell made the remarks in an exclusive interview with SANA during her official field visit to Syria. She said the mission focused on reviewing UNICEF’s operations, strengthening technical partnerships and expanding the agency’s institutional capacity to meet children’s growing needs.
The Humanitarian Picture
UNICEF’s programs in Syria run from classrooms to clinics. They include school rehabilitation, routine childhood immunization campaigns and nutritional support for vulnerable families.
Russell singled out one project in Damascus. UNICEF provided technical support to reactivate the Jobar water pumping station, restoring access to safe drinking water for more than 1 million residents in the capital and the surrounding countryside.
Access to quality education, primary healthcare, clean water and adequate sanitation, along with formal schooling, remains fundamental to children’s well-being, development and long-term economic prospects, Russell said. The agency’s work also reaches beyond primary education, she added, to vocational skills training and youth empowerment.
Returns and Reintegration
Every refugee or displaced person Russell met, she said, expressed a strong desire to return home. She described facilitating families’ voluntary return to Syria as critical.
The harder part comes after families arrive. Russell identified support for state institutions that help returnees, particularly children, reintegrate into normal life as a key challenge. Children coming back need schools, health services and protection systems that work. Those systems are still being rebuilt.
Working Through Government
Russell said UNICEF draws on its global expertise and long-standing experience in Syria to support children across the country. The organization achieves its strongest results, she said, when it works directly with national governments. Governments bear ultimate responsibility for their young populations, she noted.
She described UNICEF’s partnership with Syrian authorities as strong and expressed appreciation for continued coordination in health, education and child protection. Russell reaffirmed the agency’s commitment to strengthening government capacity and institutional systems so they can serve children better.
Investment in children is essential to Syria’s recovery, Russell said. She also said she had seen a “strong sense of optimism and enormous potential” across the country. International partners, she said, must work together to create an environment where children can grow and thrive.
Why This Matters: The number at the center of this story is 6.9 million children, and the UNICEF chief says their need is urgent. Russell’s account ties their futures to concrete services: safe water for more than 1 million people in and around Damascus, vaccinations, schooling and nutrition. It also ties them to the capacity of institutions that must support families returning home. Her appeal for international partners to work together points to a gap between the scale of need and the resources and coordination available to meet it. From a human rights perspective, the stakes are measured in what a generation of children can count on: clean water, a classroom, a health clinic. Those basics shape Syria’s recovery, and they shape the children living through it.