Gordon Brown, Cameron’s predecessor as prime minister, warned this week that a failure to educate young refugees would leave them vulnerable to radicalization, posing a global security risk.
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Just one day before the conference, United Nations-led talks in Geneva aimed at achieving a cease-fire in Syria were abruptly suspended.
A Saudi military spokesman said Thursday the kingdom is ready to send ground troops to Syria to fight Islamic State group provided coalition leaders agree during an upcoming meeting in Brussels. An estimated 4.6 million people have fled the war-torn country, and millions more are displaced inside the nation’s borders; some 250,000 have been killed, NPR’s Leila Fadel reports.
He said the money (£6.8bn) would provide millions in Syria with “life-saving” food, medical care and shelter.
The European Union, Germany, Britain and the United States were among those making major donations to areas including food aid, education and allowing Syrians displaced from their homeland to find work.
France: Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has pledged about 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) from 2016 to 2018.
Conference co-hosts Britain, Norway and Germany were the first to announce their pledges.
Play video “Where Does Syrian Aid Money Go?”
However, former foreign secretary David Miliband, head of the humanitarian charity the International Rescue Committee, said the refugee crisis could not be solved overnight.
Recriminations erupted in full force just one day after peace talks stalled in Geneva.
“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. “We should not have talks only for the sake of talks”, Mr. Ban said.
Neither statement mentioned any concrete measures.
Russian Federation is represented at the conference by Ambassador Alexander Yakovenko.
The talks in Geneva had barely begun, with Mr de Mistura meeting a government delegation last Friday and continuing meetings with the main opposition delegation on Monday and Wednesday.
Fierce attacks by militias supporting the Assad regime in Syria – many made up of Afghan Shia migrants in Iran who have been press-ganged into fighting by Tehran – and backed by Russian air strikes have all but encircled the city of Aleppo. “The coming days should be used to get back to the table, not to secure more gains on the battlefield”.
The stalled peace process increases pressure on donor countries to commit long-term aid to the war’s victims.
“If ever there was a moment to take a new approach to the humanitarian crisis in Syria surely it is now”, Cameron said reported by ABC News.
The UK has pledged £1.2 billion in new aid between now and 2020, and the US committed more than £600 million, which will bring total USA humanitarian spending on the five-year war to £3.5 billion.
“As a result there will be over 1 million new jobs in the region for refugees and residents alike”, he said.
According to the United Nations, almost nine in 10 of the 1.2 million Syrian refugees in Jordan live below the poverty line.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu says his country will accept any Syrian refugees that come, in addition to the 2.5 million already in his country.
“We are asking that Turkey looks after us and opens its doors to us”, Fettah said. “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”.
The exodus from Syria shows no signs of ending. Amateur video showed thousands, including women and children, running with their belongings toward the frontier.
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More than 260,000 people have died in Syria’s conflict and more than half the country’s population have been forced from their homes, while the chaos has helped to fuel the rise of extremist groups such as IS across the region.
