In the absence of comprehensive registration mechanisms, particularly for IDPs, the figures currently in use by the UN country team are estimates. By the end of 2018, an estimated 1.6 million people moved across Syria, many multiple times, with 11.7 million who remained in need of humanitarian assistance including 6.2 million women, men, girls and boys internally displaced. Of these, around 5 million were people in acute need (severity 6-4). 1.16 million people were in need in hard-to-reach areas. The NES area continued to be seriously affected by the situation in Raqqa, Deir-ez-Zor, and Mosul triangle, leading to multiple waves of new displacements. While increased numbers of affected persons still remain in displacement, considerable numbers of IDP and refugee were seen returning. At least 56,047 Syrian refugees spontaneously returned to Syria in 2018 while 1.4 million displaced persons returned to areas of origin where relative security stability had been attained. Some 2 million children were out of school with many forced to work to support their families, while others lived in hard-to-reach and did not access education for many years. Refugee protection and assistance programs were maintained for around 45,360 refugee/asylum seekers in the country of whom 7,879 were in camps in Al-Hasakeh Governorate while an urban population of 12,648 individuals was primarily in Damascus and Rural Damascus. Resettlement activities were impacted by the lack of representations of resettlement states in Syria, the lack of adequate quota and the restrictive criteria set by some resettlement countries. Despite this, a total of 219 persons departed Syria on resettlement to Australia, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
