Salam Asks Donors for Assistance to Confront Syrian Refugee Crisis

Prime Minister Tammam Salam asked donors on Tuesday for humanitarian assistance to help the Lebanese authorities implement a plan to overcome the Syrian refugee crisis.

“The crisis should be managed through a more than $1 billion plan set up by the Lebanese government,” Salam said at an international conference for donors held in Kuwait.

The PM's call for assistance to the Lebanese government is only 37 percent of the pledges that Lebanon is expecting to receive at the conference.

The remaining 63 percent of the $2.1 billion in assistance that the country is asking for will cover humanitarian cases such as aid to Lebanon's most vulnerable communities and the refugees.

Lebanon is hosting around 1.5 million refugees. The country is already suffering from infrastructure-related problems and political issues, Salam said.

He stressed that the Syrian refugee crisis has also caused a dangerous security situation.

“The price that our country is paying is more than it can handle,” he told the conference, which was attended by representatives from 78 nations.

Salam called on donors and the international community to prevent the crisis “from turning into a demographic tragedy.”

The direct humanitarian assistance should be made to the refugees. But it should also intend to create a sustainable development in the Lebanese economy, the PM said.

Earlier, Kuwait's Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah made a pledge of $500 million in humanitarian aid for Syria.

In his opening remarks, he said the Syrian conflict is the "biggest humanitarian crisis in recent history."

The civil war, now in its fifth year, has killed at least 220,000 people and displaced 11 million, according to U.N. figures.

Kuwait has hosted a donor conference for Syrians in each of the last two years, generating several billion dollars worth of pledges.

Countries and organizations at last year's conference pledged some $2.4 billion.

G.K.

M.T.