US government aid officials said that the humanitarian crisis in Syria is one of the most complex situations they have ever seen as 2.5 million people are currently in need of help, dpa reported.
"On that scale, it's right up there with the worst crises in the world today," said Mark Bartolini, director of the Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance at USAID.
Bartolini and David Robinson, a top official in the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, spoke to reporters via web chat on Tuesday.
The 2.5 million people include 1.2 million people who have been displaced, according to a transcript of the briefing available late Tuesday.
The US government has contributed more than 82 million dollars of aid in the form of food and medicine that has reached an estimated 780,000 people. Most of the aid has been sent in through UN and other aid organizations. Aid is also being delivered to refugees in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan. The officials said the aid delivery system, aid workers and established clinics were under constant and heavy attack, but they declined to say who was carrying out the attacks.
Aid was being delivered into Aleppo, Syria's commercial capital and one of the primary producers of drugs for the country. But it is also one of the most violent areas.
"So you're seeing very common drugs like pain killers, antibiotics, vaccines coming in short supply," said Bartolini.