International donors today pledged 4.4 billion dollars in aid for 2018 for civilians caught up in the Syrian civil war.
The sum committed at a two-day conference in Brussels was less than half of the USD 9 billion the United Nations says is needed this year to help those in need inside Syria and living as refugees in neighbouring countries.
The head of the UN aid agency UNOCHA called the USD 4.4 billion a good start but Oxfam slammed the international response as tragically inadequate.
The EU’s aid commissioner Christos Stylianides said later that pledges of a further USD 3.4 billion for 2019 and after were made at the conference, attended by more than 80 countries, aid groups and agencies.
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