Shai Fund expands emergency response in Beth Zalin (Qamishli), North and East Syria

BETH ZALIN, North and East Syria — US-based humanitarian organization Shai Fund said it has rapidly scaled up an emergency relief operation in North and East Syria, delivering aid to 4,311 displaced families — 20,642 people in all — across Newroz Camp and several other internally displaced persons (IDP) locations in and around Beth Zalin (Qamishli).

In a press statement, Shai Fund said the intervention grew far beyond its original plan after field consultations and a sharp rise in need among displaced communities from Cafrin (Afrin) and other areas. What had been conceived as assistance for roughly 1,120 families in one camp was expanded to reach 22 distribution points across Newroz Camp and the city, an increase the group said amounted to 285 percent more families helped than initially planned. Distributions that began in February 2025 included 2,740 food parcels, 1,050 hygiene kits, 524 infant milk packages and 259 gas burners, items the organization described as lifesaving for families living in makeshift shelters.

“By working with our partners in [the Democratic Autonomous Administration of the Region of North and East Syria (DAARNES)], we were able to rapidly scale this response and bring practical, life-sustaining aid to the most vulnerable,” Charmaine Hedding, president of Shai Fund, is quoted as saying in the statement. A young couple housed in a collective center told aid workers the distribution was carried out with “care and dignity,” the organization reported.

The relief drive underscores the severity of a wider humanitarian emergency across Syria that continues to displace and impoverish civilians more than a decade after the outbreak of widespread conflict. United Nations and aid agency reporting this year has documented hundreds of thousands of new displacements, millions of people still uprooted inside the country, and acute gaps in funding and access that limit what humanitarian actors can deliver.

UNICEF and other UN agencies reported in early 2025 that more than 600,000 people had been newly displaced in a recent wave of violence and population movement, adding to a total of roughly 7.2 million people internally displaced in Syria. Aid groups have warned that children make up a large share of those affected and that infant nutrition, hygiene and safe cooking remain pressing needs for families living in temporary shelters.

As of spring 2025, tens of thousands were reported living in collective centers established to host arrivals from other governorates.

Aid agencies operating in the region face a familiar set of constraints: access challenges in contested areas, shortages of staff and supplies, and a steep decline in international funding. The UN and humanitarian coordinators have repeatedly warned that global donor fatigue and shrinking aid pledges are eroding the capacity to respond to multiple simultaneous crises, leaving many needs unmet. In late 2024 and into 2025 the UN mounted an unusually large appeal for funding, even as the share of the appeal covered by donors remained low.

DAARNES have also been active in moving supplies and enabling distributions, although the complex political landscape continues to restrict how and where international agencies operate. Humanitarian analysts say adaptive, partner-driven efforts by local and smaller international organizations can deliver help quickly in areas that are harder for larger agencies to reach.

Shai Fund described its operation in Beth Zalin as precisely that kind of adaptive response. The organization said the mix of food, hygiene and infant nutrition assistance was selected to meet immediate survival needs while preserving dignity and reducing health risks for recipients living in cramped or improvised shelter. Aid workers emphasized that safe cooking fuel and infant milk packages are among the items that can avert both acute malnutrition and dangerous coping strategies such as unsafe fuel use.

The organization also placed the Beth Zalin campaign within a broader programmatic effort. Shai Fund said it had coordinated more than $9 million in aid across Syria this year, combining short-term relief with projects intended to support longer-term resilience in areas where access is limited. Whether that combination will be enough to meet needs in the northeast depends heavily on donor support and the stability of access routes for convoys and relief partners.

For now, recipients said the immediate benefit was tangible. In a context where many displaced families rely on sporadic assistance and informal aid networks, shipments of food parcels, hygiene kits and infant formula can mean the difference between surviving the coming weeks and falling deeper into crisis. Aid groups say that scaling up those supplies, even in modest amounts, will be critical if displacement trends continue.