Kuwait may host Syria aid conference as war toll reaches 115000

PanARMENIAN.Net - Kuwait says the UN chief has urged authorities to host another donors' conference for Syrian humanitarian relief as needs swell for refugees and other civilians caught in the civil war, according to the Associated Press.

Kuwait hosted a gathering in January that raised more than $1.5 billion in aid, but relief agencies say demands are rising rapidly.

According to the UN, more than 4.2 million people are displaced within Syria and 2 million have fled to other countries in the region.

The official Kuwait News Agency reported on Wednesday, Oct 2, that the country's emir, Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah, was encouraged by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to arrange another conference.

It says the two spoke late Tuesday in New York.

Kuwait's Gulf Arab allies are key backers of rebels seeking to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The United Nations is shifting its aid effort for Syria to prepare for long-term help to neighboring countries to cope with the humanitarian crisis, the head of the UN refugee agency UNHCR said on Tuesday.

"The new approach is to combine the emergency with the long-term. For that, humanitarian agencies alone cannot do it," UNHCR chief Antonio Guterres told a news conference in Geneva, according to Reuters.

"What we want from now is ... a longer-term kind of approach, not only in relation to humanitarian aspects but in relation to structural aspects, namely related to those areas that are more directly impacted - education, health, infrastructure, housing, environment."

UN agencies want to join forces with the World Bank and other international financial agencies to help neighbors of Syria that are shouldering the heaviest burden.

UNHCR said 17 countries were participating in its program to resettle Syrian refugees, including 12 European countries, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United States and Mexico.

Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says more than 115 thousand people have been killed so far in Syria's two-and-a-half-year-old war, including soldiers, rebels and civilians.

The figures suggest that around five-thousand people had died in September alone and that the bloodshed had not been slowed by an international deal for the elimination of Syria's chemical weapons after an August 21 sarin gas attack in the Damascus area.

The British-based Observatory, which monitors the conflict through a network of activists, medical and military sources around Syria, said about 47-thousand soldiers and militia fighters loyal to President Bashar al-Assad had been killed.

The Observatory said rebel fighters, including army defectors, accounted for around 23-thousand of the dead.

It said more than 41-thousand civilians have also been killed, including six-thousand children and four-thousand women.