Wealthy nations have only taken in a “pitiful” number of the millions of refugees uprooted by Syria’s conflict, placing the burden on the country’s ill-equipped neighbors, Amnesty International said Friday.
In a statement ahead of a December 9 donors’ conference in Geneva, the London-based rights group blasted as shocking the failure of rich nations to host more refugees.
“Around 3.8 million refugees from Syria are being hosted in five main countries within the region: Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt,” said Amnesty.
“Only 1.7 percent of this number have been offered sanctuary by the rest of the world,” the rights group added.
Highlighting what it called “the pitiful numbers of resettlement places offered by the international community,” Amnesty noted that the Gulf states, Russia and China had not offered a single resettlement place.
Excluding Germany, the European Union as a whole has pledged to take in only 0.17 percent of the refugees now housed in the main host countries around Syria.
“The shortfall… is truly shocking,” said Sherif Elsayed-Ali, Amnesty’s head of refugee and migrants’ rights.
“The complete absence of resettlement pledges from the Gulf is particularly shameful,” he said, adding, “linguistic and religious ties should place the Gulf states at the forefront of those offering safe shelter.”
The group said the failure of wealthy nations to share the burden had placed enormous strain on Syria’s neighbors, which are largely ill-equipped to deal with the pressure.
Amnesty said it was calling for the resettlement of five percent of Syria’s refugees by the end of 2015, and another five percent the following year.
That would accommodate all of the approximately 380,000 refugees identified for resettlement by the United Nations because of particular vulnerabilities, including lone children and torture survivors.
“Countries cannot ease their consciences with cash pay-outs then simply wash their hands of the matter,” Elsayed-Ali said.
“Those with the economic means to do so must play a greater role,” he added.
In addition to those who fled the war-ravaged country to become refugees, the UN says more than seven million Syrians are internally displaced.
The refugees face poverty, illness and growing tensions with host communities in their already-impoverished temporary homes.
As the conflict rages, there is little prospect that the more than three million Syrians who have fled to neighboring countries and beyond will be able to return home any time soon.
Meanwhile, the European Union offered 180 million euros (approximately $223 million) Thursday to help Lebanon and Jordan cope with a massive influx of refugees from Syria.
Lebanon’s population has grown by nearly 25 percent since the war in Syria began in 2011, with over 1.5 million Syrian refugees sheltered in a country with a population of 4 million, making it the highest per capita concentration of refugees in the world.
The European Commission said the aid package would help deal with the long-term problems of the 1.1 million refugees in Lebanon and 630,000 in Jordan.
Some of the funds will also go to Syria itself where the conflict has displaced up to 7 million people.
The package “addresses in particular the education of children and young adults… as well as measures to improve the resilience of the refugees as well as the communities hosting them through economic development activities,” a Commission statement said.
The EU has provided about 1.5 billion euros since the Syrian conflict erupted in 2011 while the 28 member states have separately provided about 1.4 billion euros, according to Commission figures.
“We are ready and willing to bring a continued support to the people of Syria and to the neighboring countries hosting Syrian refugees,” EU foreign affairs head Federica Mogherini said.
“We are determined to play our role to the full and bring a lasting political solution to this regional crisis,” Mogherini added.
The news come after the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) announced Wednesday that it does not have funding for the month of December.
As a result, 1.7 million Syrian refugees in four countries – 1.1 million of them in Lebanon – might not receive food aid.
Syrian refugees are now afraid they will die of the cold weather and of starvation.
WFP’s food vouchers were helping nearly two million refugees scattered in countries around the Middle East as each registered refugee receives a card that is topped up with money each month.
The WFP said it needed $64 million (51 million euros) to fund its food voucher program for December alone and that “many donor commitments remain unfulfilled.”
The diminishing humanitarian assistance has created bitterness and disappointment among many refugees
Across the region, Syrian refugees face increasing tension with host communities angry about the strain that the refugee influx has put on sparse local resources.
The lack of food will “potentially cause further tensions, instability and insecurity in the neighboring host countries,” WFP Executive Director Ertharin Cousin said in a statement on Tuesday.
The announcement from WFP is the latest in a series of cuts made by agencies and NGOs assisting more than three million Syrian refugees.
They say funding pledges have not materialized, and “donor fatigue” is beginning to set in, nearly four years after the conflict in Syria began with anti-government protests in March 2011.
Consequently, the WFP launched a social media campaign Wednesday to raise the $64 million needed to help feed nearly 1.7 million refugees after donors failed to honor cash pledges.
“Even one dollar can make a difference. We’re saying to people: ‘For you it’s a dollar, for them it’s a lifeline’,” Cousin said in a statement.
“All it takes is $1 from 64 million people,” she said.
It is worth noting that the US House of Representatives adopted a $584.2 billion annual defense spending bill Thursday, which includes emergency funding for military operations against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group and training and equipping the so-called “moderate” Syrian rebels. However, it doesn’t include providing any humanitarian assistance to Syrian refugees.
The US annual defense bill could secure WFP’s humanitarian aid for Syrian refugees for roughly 7 years.