Iraq News

EU, UN seek aid boost for Syria

The EU and UN on Tuesday (April 24th) began a two-day push to drum up fresh aid pledges for Syria and reinvigorate the faltering Geneva peace process as the conflict enters its eighth year, AFP reported.

Donor countries, aid organisations and UN agencies are gathering in Brussels for the seventh annual conference on Syria's future.

EU officials hope to beat the $6 billion pledged at last year's gathering.

The UN has warned that its own appeal for money for humanitarian work in Syria this year is less than a quarter funded, receiving less than $800 million of the $3.5 billion needed.

"Within the resources we can plausibly expect to mobilise this year we cannot meet even all the urgent needs," Mark Lowcock, the head of UN humanitarian agency OCHA said at the start of the conference.

"Our focus is now to ensure the 5.6 million people we assess as being in acute need inside Syria are made the focus."

Lowcock said the "intensity of the humanitarian crisis has escalated again in 2018", with more than 700,000 people displaced since the start of the year.

Alongside the aid drive, the EU's diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini will hold talks with the UN special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, on Tuesday as part of efforts to restart peace talks.

"The only way to avoid that the Syrian crisis spirals into wider conflict is to put pressure on all parties including the Syrian regime to come to Geneva for meaningful discussions," Mogherini said last week.

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