What's new

The U.N. is stockpiling tents, plastic sheeting and other supplies in Dubai to be able to quickly deploy them throughout the region. The UNHCR is readying a new refugee camp in central Jordan to hold tens of thousands more Syrians.

The World Food Program is already distributing emergency food rations both inside and outside Syria to 4.1 million people affected by the fighting. Now the agency is readying grain in warehouses in case the situation deteriorates, says WFP spokesman Abeer Etefa.

"In Lebanon, for example we have stocked up in terms of food parcels," she says. "We can provide assistance to an influx of up to 120,000 people at a given point in time."

It's very hard to predict how a military strike by the West might affect the flow of refugees, Etefa says. But the WFP's food distribution system inside Syria is already facing huge challenges. "We are taking this day by day. Access is already bad," she says. "There are many areas that we haven't been able to reach for some time."

WFP began providing emergency food relief to people displaced by the Syrian civil war almost two years ago. The refugees living in the sprawling tent camps often fled their homes with just the things they could carry, Etefa says. Even if they did have some savings, that money was exhausted a long time ago.

"The majority of the people that have fled ... are extremely vulnerable," she says. "They have nothing. They cannot work. They have fled to countries and communities that already have their own share of problems."