President Trump’s administration will give $397 million to help fund humanitarian aid for Syrian refugees, the State Department announced Thursday.
“The United States is providing urgently-needed food, shelter, sanitation and hygiene, medical care, education, and other relief to help assist the nearly 12 million people suffering inside Syria, as well as the nearly 5.7 million refugees in the region,” the State Department said.
The pledge was unveiled during an international conference, co-hosted by the United Nations and the European Union in Brussels, that organizers expect to generate about $7 billion in new assistance. The meeting is taking place as Western leaders confront the dilemma of how to mitigate the suffering caused by the civil war, as Syrian dictator Bashar Assad works to consolidate control of the country in the eighth year of the conflict.
“That is a very significant result,” Mark Lowcock, the United Nations emergency relief coordinator, said as the pledges rolled in.
U.S. taxpayers have provided more than $9.5 billion in aid since the conflict began in 2011, according to the State Department. The latest tranche includes $135 million for food and medical care inside of Syria, along with subsidies to several regional countries — chiefly Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt — that are bearing the brunt of the refugee crisis.
The pledging conference took place as Assad’s regime, in coordination with Russia, is carrying out airstrikes against the major rebel-held bastion of Idlib. Lowcock, while pleased with the pace of the pledges, is “increasingly alarmed” at the resurgence of violence in Syria.
“While many places are calmer than a year ago, others, particularly the northwest and the last pockets of ISIL-controlled land in the northeast are seeing ongoing and even escalating violence,” he said at the opening of the meeting. “A large-scale military assault on Idlib would create the worst humanitarian catastrophe the world has seen in the 21st century. That is, I believe, simply unacceptable.”
International aid groups warned Thursday that “the war is not over” and called for additional help in resettling Syrian refugees.
“Fundamentally, these risks civilians face, the ongoing conflict, crippling poverty and the lack of basic services are all significant barriers which need to be overcome before conditions are conducive to the return of refugees,” World Vision, Mercy Corps, and thirteen other nongovernmental organizations said in a joint statement.
U.S. officials have predicted for years that Assad would have to step aside due to his inability to pay for the reconstruction of Syria. But Russia and Assad are lobbying outside powers to provide the funding, arguing that it would alleviate the refugee crisis that has rocked European politics, and demanded the support Thursday despite the rebuke for the latest round of airstrikes.
“We expect that the distribution of the collected funds won’t be politicized and most of them will be spent on restoring peace on the territories controlled by the Syrian authorities,” the allies said in a statement carried by TASS, a Kremlin-run media outlet.
