Shaaban Bilal (Brussels)
Yesterday, the European Union hosted an international conference to raise funds for Syria, which was hit by a violent earthquake earlier this year, while the United States and the European Union pledged more than $2.5 billion in aid.
“Humanitarian funding for Syria is not proceeding at the same pace as the rapidly increasing needs,” said the European Union’s Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janiz Lenarcic, who hosts the conference and is responsible for the humanitarian aid provided by the bloc.
Three United Nations organizations described the needs in Syria as “enormous” and said that only a tenth of the funding required has been secured so far for 2023 projects to help Syrians at home and refugees in the region.
“More Aid for the Syrian people and for the countries hosting them (refugees) is essential…the needs are huge.”
The three U.N. officials said they hoped to get pledges equal to those made to Syria and its neighbors themselves at a similar conference last year, amounting to $6.7 billion.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says that more than 14 million Syrians have fled their homes since 2011, and about 6.8 million are still displaced inside Syria, where almost the entire population lives below the poverty line.
Some 5.5 million Syrian refugees live in Türkiye, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt.
“We cannot afford to lose another generation, and Syria should no longer be a place from which people flee,” said Dan Stoinescu, head of the European Union Delegation to Syria.
The United States and Germany announced that they would provide additional financial assistance to Syria.
The US State Department said that the United States announced additional aid to Syria worth $920 million during a conference in Brussels yesterday.
The ministry added, in a statement, that the new package raises the total US humanitarian aid to Syria and the region to $1.1 billion this year, and about $16.9 billion since the start of the war in Syria.
The German government pledged 1.05 billion euros to help alleviate the refugee crisis in Syria and the region.
“Forgetting the Syrian crisis now would be a grave mistake,” German Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development Svenia Schulze said at a conference on Syria in Brussels.
For its part, the European Union pledged 560 million euros ($600 million) to help Syria’s neighboring countries bear the costs of hosting Syrian refugees.
“Unfortunately, there has been very little progress over the past year towards resolving the Syrian conflict,” said European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, during his announcement at the conference in Brussels.
The United Nations Special Envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, said during the conference: “We are at a turning point regarding Syria, but the causes and consequences of the conflict have not yet been fully addressed.”
For his part, the European Union spokesman for the Middle East and North Africa, Luis Bueno, said that the bloc continues to call for a political solution to the crisis in Syria led by the United Nations Special Envoy, calling for reliable steps to be taken in line with the UN process.
Over the course of two days, the European Union will organize the Seventh Brussels Conference on “Supporting the Future of Syria and the Region” to keep Syria at the top of the international agenda, and to mobilize financial support to meet humanitarian needs and strengthen the resilience of the Syrian people and host communities in the region.
Luis Boino said in exclusive statements to Al-Ittihad: “The main objective of the conference is to show continuous solidarity with the Syrian people, and to keep the Syrian issue on the international agenda.” He pointed out that the Brussels conferences are an opportunity to reaffirm the support of the European Union and the international community for the Syrian people through financial mobilization. To meet the humanitarian needs, and to strengthen the resilience of the Syrians, as well, the conference provides a platform for the Syrian civil society to discuss the challenges it faces, and to participate in the meeting of ministers to shed light on them.
Biono considered that the European Union agrees with the statement of the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, that the return of Syria to the League should be seen as the beginning of a long process linked to the fulfillment of the commitments agreed upon in the Amman Declaration with steps to implement Security Council Resolution 2254 within a “step by step” approach.
The Syrian file has returned to the forefront of the international community’s attention again after the Arab League’s decision to return Damascus to its seat, in an attempt to reach real solutions to get the Syrian people out of their crisis that began more than 11 years ago.
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