The United Nations has warned that Europe should anticipate droves of Syrian refugees if aid programs in Syria’s neighboring countries and other places are not sustained.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Tuesday that if enough support was not provided to around 5.3 million Syrian refugees in Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and Egypt, countries in Europe would have to await an exodus like the one that rocked the continent in 2015.

“We had the experience of 2015, we don’t want to repeat that,” said Amin Awad, the director of the UNHCR’s Middle East and North Africa bureau, while briefing reporters on the details of the UN body’s $4.63-billion appeal for 2017.

Awad said only 53 percent of the UNHCR’s appeal for aid to Syrian refugees had been received, adding that an acute shortage of services like the one that affected Syrian refugees in 2015 could force them toward European borders.

Amin Awad, the UNHCR bureau director for the Middle East and North Africa, gives an interview in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, March 22, 2017. (AFP photo)

UNHCR figures show that more than a million refugees arrived in Europe in 2015 with around half of them people fleeing war in Syria. The European Union, which initially adopted a welcoming and humanitarian gesture toward the refugees, then managed to cut the flow through a deal with Turkey.

Awad said vital programs providing food, health care, education and shelter to Syrian refugees is facing cutbacks due to shortfalls in funding.

“That means we’re not able to provide stoves, we are not able to deliver kerosene, we are not able to deliver enough thermal blankets ... People are sitting in cold, open buildings,” said the UN official, adding, “Now the material assistance is left to the donors and international community... And that’s not coming through. So we have to be prepared for consequences.”