DOHA (MEMO/Al Jazeera) – Save the Children has warned that the $6.7 billion pledged by the international community at the sixth annual Brussels Conference for Syria reeling under Western sanctions is “woefully inadequate and falls far short of what is required”.
“It is with a heavy heart that it seems that, yet again, the international community has all but forgotten children in Syria and neighboring countries who urgently need funding for their survival, learning and protection,” the charity said in a press release on Tuesday.
As the Syrian government is fighting back the foreign-backed terrorists for almost 12 years, “97% of the population is living below the poverty line, and more than 80% do not know where their next meal is coming from. Almost 20% of children in Syria are out of school, while a third of families say their children are showing signs of psychological distress.”
This, it added, makes it evident that “the international community has all but forgotten children in Syria and neighboring countries.”
Donors at the sixth annual Brussels conference pledged $4.3 billion for this year and $2.4 billion “for 2023 and beyond”, while international financial institutions also pledged $1.8 billion in loans. The UN had sought $10.5 billion for 2022 alone.
The pledges match that of last year, though demands have skyrocketed.
Qatar pledged $50 million to support the Syrian people during the conference.
Damascus had already said the conference would not help Syrians and could not restore their rights as it is not in line with the principles of the United Nations’ regulating humanitarian action and it is held without participation of the Syrian Arab Republic itself.
The Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates made the comments in a statement, carried by Syria’s official news agency SANA a day before the event.
The organizers of the conference had claimed that it was aimed at reasserting the international community’s commitment toward Syrians and their host communities in neighboring countries and toward a negotiated political solution to the conflict.
The claim, however, is strongly refuted by Damascus, saying such conferences in their current form cannot be held without participation of Syria itself, as the main country concerned, and that they do not agree with the principles of the UN regulating humanitarian action.
Meanwhile, Save the Children has said about 9.6 million children in Afghanistan have been unable to secure food on a daily basis due to a deepening economic crisis in the country, the impact of the Ukraine war, and continuing drought.
In the report published on Tuesday, the NGO called for “immediate food assistance” to save lives in the short-term, adding however that aid alone was “not enough to tackle the country’s worst hunger crisis on record”.
“Despite a significant amount of food aid reaching families in recent months, 19.7 million children and adults, almost 50 percent of the population, are still going hungry and need urgent support to survive,” said the report.