The United Nations High Commission for Refugees says Syria’s civil war has created the largest refugee crisis since the 1994 Rwandan genocide. More than two million Syrians have fled the country and more than four million are displaced within Syria. Women and children account for 75 per cent of these war nomads. And it’s getting worse.

Unless the international community can silence the guns, the UN estimates that by year’s end more than 10 million Syrians — almost half the nation’s population — will need aid. That includes 3.5 million people who will have fled the country — primarily to Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq — and another 6.8 million forced from their homes but still in Syria.

Syria is “hemorrhaging women, children and men” who are fleeing with little more than the clothes on their backs, the UN said. They are running from the kidnapping, rape, torture and murder that is brutally dealt out by government and rebel forces. These are the living victims of war and they urgently require international help.

Canada and most Western nations were correct to oppose U.S. calls for military strikes on Syria. But there is no justification for fence-sitting when it comes to humanitarian aid. The UN is trying to raise $5 billion, the largest humanitarian appeal in its history, to provide food, water, shelter, medical aid and other essentials for traumatized refugees. Despite recent pledges from Canada and Britain, and significant ongoing support by the United States, the UN has barely reached half its objective. Many G-20 nations that are quick to condemn war atrocities are slow to aid war victims. They must do both.

But money alone is no panacea. Cheques must be backed by an international resolve to enforce impartial delivery of aid to all those in need. No-go zones now routinely imposed by government forces and rebels must be opened up to aid convoys through negotiation or otherwise to ensure efficient, safe passage for relief workers across borders and behind front lines. Americans and Russians may disagree about military intervention but it would be unconscionable for them and others to fail to unite under a UN banner to distribute life-saving humanitarian aid to war victims.

Unlike the chemical weapon attacks, the evidence is uncontested when it comes to the misery inflicted on millions of Syrians. They are suffering terribly and need the world to acknowledge their tears. Now.