World Leaders Pledge $10 Billion To Help Syrians

At the end of an worldwide pledging conference in London, the Prime Minister said the money promised by more than 60 countries would give hope to the millions of people displaced in the five-year civil war.

Some $600 million is going to life-saving assistance for Syrians, including food, shelter and camp supplies.

Meanwhile, rebels in the Syrian city of Aleppo are now surrounded from the north, south and east following advances by government forces and pro-regime fighters.

“Today’s achievements are not a solution to the crisis – we still need to see a political transition”, British Prime Minister David Cameron said as the conference wrapped up.

This would take Britain’s total contribution to Syria’s migration crisis to more than £2.3bn, which the prime minister said “set the standard for the global community”.

The suffering of Syria’s people “should tear at the conscience of all civilized people, and we all have a responsibility to respond to it”, Kerry said via The New York Times.

The one-day meeting, held under tight security at a conference center near Parliament, aspired to bring new urgency to the effort to help the 4.6 million Syrians who have sought refuge in neighboring countries including Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey.

Nearly $6 billion of the new pledges was for this year, while $5 billion was committed for 2017 through 2020. The Jordanian figure includes all Syrians in the country; the United Nations says it has registered 630,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan.

Britain, along with Germany, Norway, Kuwait and the United Nations, are hosting the Syria Donors Conference, the fourth to be held.

Just one day before the conference, U.N.-led talks in Geneva aimed at achieving a cease-fire in Syria were abruptly suspended.

The global aid group Mercy Corps said Thursday that intensified airstrikes and fighting around Aleppo had cut off the main humanitarian route into the Syrian city, and that tens of thousands of civilians were fleeing north toward the border with Turkey. “There is still a conviction of all parties to maintain the principles of Vienna… based on that we can come back to the negotiating table”.

The conference will focus particularly on the need to provide an education for displaced Syrian children and job opportunities for adults, reflecting growing recognition that the fallout from the Syrian war will be very long-term.

The total amount of money that the USA has donated to help Syrians over the past four years has reached $5.1 billion, which is the highest amount that has been pledged for this clause by a single donor.

Kerry said he spoke by telephone with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov Thursday, and the two agreed to continue discussing “how to implement the cease-fire”.

The King of Jordan, Abdullah, expressed his concerns over sustaining the almost 1.3 million Syrians who have settled into the country.