EU Offers 400 Million Euros in Additional Syria Aid
The European Union announced Thursday it will give another 400 million euros ($527 million) in humanitarian aid to help Syria and neighbor countries cope with increased refugee numbers as the bloody conflict deepens.
"The Syrian crisis is the most dramatic humanitarian situation in the last decade," European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso said.
"The worsening of the situation requires extraordinary measures," Barroso said in a statement, with the EU already having provided some 840 million euros.
EU International Cooperation Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva said the extra funds were "not only welcome but timely and urgently needed."
"This is a crisis on a scale which we have not seen in many years, evolving rapidly before our eyes in a fragile region," Georgieva said.
Some 1.6 million refugees are "putting neighboring states under unbearable pressure," and about seven million people "are now in need of humanitarian assistance, more than half of them children," she said.
The United Nations is due to launch a fresh appeal Friday for more aid for Syria and "it is vital that donors step up to the plate," Georgieva said.
Source: Agence France Presse
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