UK announces €60m humanitarian aid package for Syria

MADRID Dec. 16 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The United Kingdom Government announced this Sunday a humanitarian aid package worth £50 million (about €60 million) aimed at providing immediate care to the most vulnerable Syrians as well as those who are refugees in neighboring Jordan. and Lebanon.

In a statement, the British Foreign Office confirmed that more than half of the fund, some €36 million, will provide “immediate aid to more than a million people” in Syria, which will include “food, shelter, medical care emergency and protection (…) rehabilitation of essential services such as water, hospitals and schools”.

Of these 36 million, 29 million will go directly to the Pooled Funds for Syria led by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). .

The rest of the package, €24 million, will provide assistance to Syrian refugees in Lebanon, with €12 million through the World Food Program (WFP), and in Jordan, donating the other half to the WFP and the Food and Agriculture Organization (WFP). UN for Refugees (UNHCR).

On the other hand, the British authorities have also made 120,000 pounds sterling (about 144,200 euros) available to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to support it in its mission to “free Syria of chemical weapons” and help “the Syrian Interim Government fulfill its commitment to protect chemical weapons sites and never use these weapons under any circumstances.”

This financing is in addition to the 11 million pounds (more than 13 million euros) in humanitarian aid for the Arab country announced on December 9, highlighted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.