BRUSSELS
\nThe European Union hosted an international conference on Thursday to collect money for Syria where an earthquake earlier this year aggravated the already dire plight of people who have been caught in war since 2011.
\n\u201cHumanitarian funding for Syria is not keeping pace with rapidly increasing needs,\u201d said Janez Lenarcic, the conference host and the EU\u2019s top official for humanitarian aid and crisis management.
\nThree United Nations agencies have said the needs are \u201cenormous\u201d and warned that only a tenth of necessary financing has so far been secured for 2023 projects.
\n\u201cMore help for the Syrian people and those hosting them is imperative. The needs are enormous,\u201d said a joint statement by Martin Griffiths, Filippo Grandi and Achim Steiner, who jointly steer the U.N.-led response to the crisis in Syria.
\nThe U.N. chiefs said they hoped for a similar level of pledges to the $6.7 billion offered for Syria and its neighbours at a similar conference last year.
\nAccording to U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, more than 14 million Syrians have fled their homes since 2011, and about 6.8 million remain displaced in their own country, where almost the entire population lives below the poverty line.
\nAbout 5.5 million Syrian refugees live in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt.
\n\u201cWe cannot afford to lose yet another generation. Syria should no longer be a place from which people are running away\u201d, Dan Stoenescu, EU head of mission to Syria, said.
\nWhat started as peaceful protests against President Bashar al Assad\u2019s rule in Syria in 2011 spiralled into a multi-sided conflict sucking in Russia, Iran, Turkey and other countries. The war has killed more than 350,000 people.
\nRussia eventually tipped the balance in favour of Assad who last month received a warm welcome at a summit of Arab states that ended years of his isolation by regional peers.
\nThe West refuses to rehabilitate Assad and a large swathe of Syria remains under the control of Turkish-backed rebels and radical Islamist groups as well as a U.S.-backed Kurdish militia.
\nLenarcic also called for extended humanitarian access from Turkey to the northwestern part of Syria.
\nBoth the United States and Germany announced on Thursday that they would provide Syria with additional financial aid.
\nWriting by Gabriela Baczynska, Charlotte Van Campenhout, Aditional reporting by Maya Gebeily from Beirut; editing by Mark Heinrich<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BRUSSELS The European Union hosted an international conference on Thursday to collect money for Syria where an earthquake earlier this year aggravated the already dire plight of people who have been caught in war since 2011. \u201cHumanitarian funding for Syria is not keeping pace with rapidly increasing needs,\u201d said Janez Lenarcic, the conference host and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337987,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-337973","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n