UN pleads for Syria refugee aid to speed up

The United Nations said Thursday there is an acute shortage of money to provide aid to refugees from Syria and their hosts in neighbouring countries, appealing for funding to be speeded up.

Some 3.9 million people have fled the civil war in Syria, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says the shortage is hampering assistance to them and to more than 20 million people in the countries hosting them.

The UNHCR says that, of $4.53 billion (4.04 billion euros) required under the so-called Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan, only $1.06 billion, or 23 percent, had been received by the end of May.

Commissioner Antonio Guterres says that this “massive crisis requires far more solidarity and responsibility-sharing from the international community than what we have seen so far.”

— AFP