Up to 5.3 million people in Syria may be made homeless by quakes

Up to 5.3 million people in Syria may have been made homeless by the devastating earthquake which rocked the region this week, a United Nations official said on Friday

"As many as 5.3 million people in Syria may have been left homeless by the earthquake," the Syria representative of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Sivanka Dhanapala, told a press briefing.

"That is a huge number and comes to a population already suffering mass displacement," he said.

Half of Syria’s pre-war population has already been forced from their homes as a result of the war that erupted in 2011. Many fled to Turkey, finding themselves at the epicentre of the quakes.

Syria’s economy was already on the verge of collapse. In a report this year before the quakes the UN warned that 15.3m people out of a total population of 22.1m would require humanitarian aid. The economy is grappling with a debilitating fuel shortage and has been battered by Western sanctions.

"For Syria, this is a crisis within a crisis,” Dhanapala said.