Over $10b funds raised for Syrian refugees

Kerry said the new US aid includes more than $600 million in food, shelter, water, medical care and similar relief for refugees from the war, and an additional $325 million in development assistance, directed primarily at youths in refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon.

Leaders from about 70 countries are gathering to discuss a financial response to the refugee crisis at the Syria Donors Conference 2016, which opens today in London.

Previous calls for worldwide donations have come up short, and the five-year war has driven a chaotic exodus of hundreds of thousands of desperate refugees to Europe.

Prime Minister Cameron said there is a “critical shortfall” in life-saving aid that he said is holding back the worldwide community’s humanitarian efforts. The conflict has claimed more than 250,000 lives and displaced 11 million Syrians from their homes, including four million who have fled the country.

He told the leaders attending the conference, who included Germany’s Angela Merkel and United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon, that they must recognise that the world was locked in a twin fight against Islamic State and the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad.

“After nearly five years of fighting, it’s pretty incredible that as we come here in London in 2016, the situation on the ground is actually worse”, he said. Britain and Norway promised an extra $1.76bn and $1.17bn respectively by 2020, while Germany said it would give $2.57bn by 2018.

“If ever there was a moment to take a new approach to the humanitarian crisis in Syria surely it is now”, Cameron told delegates.

His government, which has agreed to take 20,000 Syrian refugees by 2020, argues that those displaced are best helped close to home and wants to support neighbouring countries in doing so.

The aim of the conference, he said, is to raise enough funds to provide for all those in the region impacted by the conflict. The US said its contribution this fiscal year would be $890m.

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

A meeting in Geneva between Syrian regime and opposition representatives was suspended Wednesday night.

“I have concluded, frankly, that after the first week of preparatory talks, there is more work to be done, not only by us, but also by the stakeholders”, United Nations mediator Staffan de Mistura said after meeting the opposition delegation on Wednesday evening at a Geneva hotel that serves as its headquarters. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in January 4.6 million people lived in hard-to-reach areas, including 486,700 in besieged locations.

In London, the Red Cross president, Peter Maurer, offered a long list of ways that worldwide law had been broken in Syria. “We need to reinforce our commitment to end the bloodshed and stem the suffering of the Syrian people, and allow unconditional and unimpeded access for aid convoys to alleviate the humanitarian plight of the Syrian people”, he added. Other money, he said, would help enroll children in school, give refugees gainful employment and eventually rebuild devastated infrastructure. Thursday’s pledges are meant to slow that migration, by creating school places and secure jobs for Syrian refugees in the Middle East, and economic support for the overburdened host nations.

The World Bank on Thursday estimated the war has cost Syria and its neighbours – Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt – some $35 billion so far.

Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon have pledged to make sure all refugee children are given access to education.

Mr Cameron said the new pledges would help address the shortfall, “bolster stability in the region” and also help to stem the flow of refugees to Europe.