UK ex-foreign secretary urges West to take in more Syrian refugees

PanARMENIAN.Net - Former UK foreign secretary David Miliband is calling on Britain and other western nations to take in more Syrian refugees because neighboring nations in the Middle East “can no longer cope with the burden” of civilians fleeing the civil war.

According to the Guardian, in a report by the International Rescue Committee (IRC), the New-York-based aid agency Miliband leads, he says Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and Iraq have taken in more than 3 million Syrian refugees, but are now “increasingly unable to maintain the levels of hospitality they have provided”.

Instead Syria’s neighbors are closing borders. On average more than 150,000 Syrians were able to cross into neighboring countries each month in 2013. However, in October this year, the number of new refugees declined by 88% to just 18,453.

Miliband argues that the time has come for countries outside the region to do more – and increase the number of Syrian refugees they have promised to take in from 50,000 to 130,000.

Miliband argues that “the international community can make the symbolically important step of agreeing to take in its fair share of refugees. More refugees have been displaced from Syria in the last month than have been resettled outside the region in the last three years. It is a depressing failure of international solidarity, and should spur the world’s wealthier countries into action.”

The report notes that “from the start of the Syrian conflict in March 2011 until August 2014, only 7,000 refugees were resettled worldwide … European countries are not doing enough”.

It points out that the main coalition partners launching strikes against Isis “need to do more”. France has pledged to resettle a mere 500 refugees, and Canada says it will offer just 200 resettlement places. The United States, which has been in the forefront of air strikes in Syria, had taken in only 166 Syrians by September 2014.