A plane carrying 100 tonnes of UN emergency supplies to assist Syrian refugee children and families arrived Sunday evening in north Iraq, officials of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) told reporters.

The supplies were urgently airlifted from UNICEF's global supply warehouse in Copenhagen, Denmark, to respond to the growing needs of Syrian refugees in Iraq, who now number more than 200,000, said the officials.

Some 50,000 refugees arrived in Erbil, Kurdistan Region of Iraq, in the last two and a half weeks. And half of them were children.

Tens of thousands of other Syrians have also taken refugee in other countries like Jordan and Lebanon. They have left Syria to escape the ongoing fighting between the government and insurgents whom Damascus says are supported by some Western countries and their regional allies.

The supplies include water tanks, tap stands, latrine equipment, water purification tablets and testing kits; oral rehydration solution; emergency health and hygiene, early childhood development and recreation kits; school materials; and temporary schools and safe spaces, said a UNICEF news release.

"These supplies come just in time to meet the pressing needs of the over 20,000 Syrian children who have recently arrived in northern Iraq," said Dr. Marzio Babille, UNICEF's representative to Iraq. "This airlift underlines UNICEF's unwavering support for the vital services these children need in the face of terrible suffering, trauma and stress."

The items come on top of 12 trucks of supplies, carrying primarily hygiene kits for over 50,000 people, that arrived earlier this week from UNICEF's warehouse hub in Mersin, Turkey, as well as an additional four trucks of emergency materials that arrived from Baghdad, the capital of Iraq.

"All of these items are part of a first wave of supplies that will massively scale-up UNICEF's emergency response to the growing number of Syrian refugee children and families in Iraq," stated Babille.

The majority of supplies were made possible by a 5.8-million-U. S. dollar contribution from the government of Kuwait as well as an in-kind contribution from US a long-standing partner of UNICEF, which provided support toward the airlift cost from Copenhagen.

UNICEF is working closely with the Kurdistan regional government, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), other UN agencies, and international and national non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to deliver vital essential services -- particularly in the water and sanitation, education, health and nutrition, and child protection sectors -- to Syrian refugee children and their families in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, the officials added.

UNICEF works in 190 countries and territories to help children survive and thrive, from early childhood through adolescence. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS.