Mr. Speaker. each day. our newspapers. magazines. radios and television screens are filled with images of people fleeing territory controlled by the Islamic jihadist group known as the Islamic State of alSham. or ISIS. More than half of the 635.000 refugeesan estimated 53 percentin Europe are from Syria alone. according to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees or UNHCR. While violence plays the major role in the impetus of Syrians to leave their homes. Shelly Pitterman of the UNHCR testified at a hearing I chaired on October 20th that the main trigger for flight from refugee camps or shelter in nations like Jordan is the humanitarian funding shortfall. In recent months. he told us that the World Food Programme cut its program by 30 percent. and the current Syrian Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan for 2015 is only 41 percent funded. The UNHCR expects to receive just 47 percent of the funding it needs for Syria over the next year. One year ago this month. the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs issued a report that detailed a worsening humanitarian situation in Syria.
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