5th February, 2016
World Vision Australia CEO Tim Costello has welcomed Australia’s commitment of an additional $25 million for relief work in Syria and Iraq as a "good start" but said that the "scale of the tragedy in Syria" means more will be needed.
Australia pledged an additional $25 million towards the relief work as representatives of nations met at a donor conference targeting the Syrian crisis in London this week. Some $13.5 billion was pledged in total at the conference with the UK and Germany pledging to provide more than $2 billion each.
The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the international community has never raised "so much money on a single day for a single crisis".
Welcoming comments from Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop that ultimately the only solution to the crisis was to end the conflict, Mr Costello said it was tragic that more bombs were falling on the city of Aleppo in Syria even as the money was being pledged – a factor cited in the suspension of peace talks being held in Geneva this week.
"This has gone on too long," Mr Costello said. "There as been too much suffering; a solution must be found to end the conflict."
Mr Costello also called for a doubling of Australia’s intake of Syrian refugees to 25,000, saying Australia must not shirk its responsibility.
The UN says that more than 13.5 million people are now in need of humanitarian assistance in Syria with almost half them displaced from their homes. This is in addition to the 4.59 million Syrian people now living as refugees in neighbouring countries.
– DAVID ADAMS
