Britain pledges $1.74 bn in aid for war-torn Syria, neighbors

PanARMENIAN.Net - The British government announced $1.74 billion in aid for war-torn Syria and its neighbors on Thursday, February 4, ahead of a donors' conference in London, AFP reports.

"More money is needed to tackle this crisis and it is needed now," Prime Minister David Cameron said in a statement announcing the pledge, which will fund education, jobs and humanitarian relief in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey.

It comes as world leaders are due to gather in London to try to raise $9 billion for the millions of Syrians affected by five years of civil war and to address an acute refugee crisis.

The conflict has forced 4.6 million Syrians to seek refuge in nearby countries -- Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt -- while hundreds of thousands have journeyed to Europe in the region's biggest migration crisis since World War II.

"With hundreds of thousands of people risking their lives crossing the Aegean or the Balkans, now is the time to take a new approach to the humanitarian disaster in Syria," Cameron said.

Donors will have to dig deeper than the last conference in 2015, when UN agencies asked for $8.4 billion to help Syria and its neighbours, but raised just $3.3 billion.

The organizers have already agreed that participants should at least "double" their contributions from last year.