Wealthy Nations Pledge Billions In ‘Life-Saving’ Humanitarian Aid For The Syrian People

One of the aims of the conference will be to ensure there are school places for all refugee children in the region by 2017 as well helping the host countries to provide places for their own vulnerable youngsters.

Aleppo offensive Turkey’s prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu told the conference that a Syrian government offensive near Aleppo, backed by Russian air strikes, had driven 70,000 people from their homes, many of whom were seeking refuge in Turkey.

£4.1 billion has been promised for this year, and a further £3.4 billion will be handed over by 2020, Mr Cameron said.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says it is “deeply disturbing” that a fragile Syrian peace process is being undermined by increased bombing and the blocking of humanitarian aid to suffering civilians.

“Never has the global community raised so much money on a single day for a single crisis”, he said.

The UN is appealing for 7.7 billion United States dollars (£5.4 billion) to fund aid operations for the 13.5 million people displaced by the fighting and in need of assistance. The European Union may be struggling to absorb 1 million refugees (0.2 percent of the bloc’s population), but Lebanon now has almost as many Syrian children in its schools as Lebanese children, with many more young Syrians left out.

Merkel pledged 2.3 billion euros in aid by 2018, saying that one reason for the donation was to help stem the flow of those impacted by the war from coming to Germany.

“In the last three days Russian warplanes bombarded Aleppo, and regime forces on the ground with foreign fighters – usually that means Daesh, but foreign fighters on the side of the regime – they attacked Aleppo”.

The package also includes $290 million to bolster education funding in Jordan and Lebanon, where 300,000 Syrian refugee youths have fled due to their country’s five-year-old civil war.

Some Syrian civil society groups attending the London event have expressed concerns that the global community was focused on the plight of refugees, to the detriment of those trapped in desperate circumstances within Syria itself.

Kerry said that he had spoken with Lavrov on Thursday, adding both parties “agreed that we need to discuss how to implement the ceasefire”.

A number of development banks were also present in this session and made commitments to scale up their support to the region. We urge the administration to uphold American ideals by welcoming many more of the most vulnerable Syrian refugees to our nation where they can rebuild their lives.

“We don’t want to go to… foreign countries”, said Abu Khaled al-Nassar, a refugee from the southern town of Daraa. United Nations envoy Staffan de Mistura said he was aiming to hold talks again by February 25.