Syria Donors Conference opens in London

David Cameron has announced that world leaders have pledged more than £7 billion to tackle the Syrian refugee crisis at an global donor conference in London.

The pledge consists of about $600 million in humanitarian assistance to provide food, shelter, water, and medical care to Syrians across the region – and around $290 million in development aid for neighboring countries.

The conference was overshadowed by the apparent breakdown in peace talks in Geneva, where delegations from the Syrian government and some opposition groups had gathered under United Nations auspices.

That operation followed an announcement by Syrian state media Wednesday that government forces, supported by Russian planes, had broken a 3½-year rebel siege of a pair of pro-regime Shiite villages north of Aleppo, and severed a key rebel supply route linking Aleppo to the Turkish border.

Turkey’s prime minister estimated that about 70,000 Syrians have fled the bombing and are headed toward Turkey.

Cameron told a news conference that donors had pledged $6 billion for this year alone, and a further $5 billion to be spent by 2020.

The United Nations (UN) on Wednesday temporarily suspended fledgling talks aimed at ending the war in Syria and called on countries fuelling the conflict to do more to yield results, as Syrian government forces sharply escalated an offensive on a strategic rebel-held city.

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.

“After five years of fighting, it’s pretty incredible that as we come here in London, the situation on the ground is actually worse, not better”, US Secretary of State John Kerry said.

The conference also committed to getting 1.7 million children into education by the end of 2016/17.

On Sunday, the UN Refugee Agency representation in Jordan announced that some 20,000 Syrian refugees have been stranded on the kingdom’s border, while 4,000-5,000 Syrian asylum-seekers enter Jordan each month. Germany has already pledged $2.3 billion by 2018, Britain $1.75 billion by 2020 and Norway $1.17 billion by 2020.

It was unclear whether the new pledged aid would be sufficient to meet the need, which seems likely to grow substantially as more Syrians flee to Turkey, Lebanon or Jordan and as more asylum-seekers attempt the perilous trip to Europe.

“We have agreed that we are engaged in a discussion about how to implement the ceasefire specifically as well as some immediate, possible confidence-building steps to deliver humanitarian assistance”, he said.

Sixty nations, including thirty world leaders, attended the conference to discuss solutions to help end the Syrian crisis. “Our country will continue to do what we can do to help those in need, but it cannot be at the expense of our own people’s welfare”. “We’re working closely with Lebanon and Jordan on what we call the European Union compacts, which are plans that won’t just ease the living conditions of the refugees, they will also support the economic and social resilience of Lebanon and Jordan in these very hard times”.