A fundraising conference in Kuwait generated at least $2.4 billion in pledges Wednesday from international donors to alleviate the suffering of Syrians affected by their country's civil war, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said.
Kuwait, the United States and other donor nations had promised more than $1.2 billion of new funding early in the day as the conference started. Aid officials hope the drive will help cover the billions of dollars needed this year.
Millions of Syrians have been driven from their homes as a result of the crisis, now in its third year, and getting aid to many of those in need remains a challenge because they remain trapped in communities besieged by the fighting.
The United Nations is asking for a staggering $6.5 billion this year to help Syrians affected by the war, its largest-ever funding appeal for a single crisis. Officials did not expect to raise the entire amount in Kuwait but do hope the gathering focuses greater international attention on the conflict.
"The fighting has set Syria back by years, even decades," the U.N.'s Ban said at the start of the event at the lavish Bayan Palace in the Kuwaiti capital.
Ban said humanitarian and development agencies "face unprecedented demands" because of the crisis, and that it "is vital ... the burden be shared" in helping meet Syria's growing aid needs.
Kuwait's emir, Sheik Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah, opened the conference by pledging $500 million, significantly topping the OPEC member nation's pledge of $300 million last year.
He pressed the U.N. Security Council to exert greater effort in bringing an end to the crisis, and urged all those fighting in Syria to "put the fate of their country and the safety of their people above all other considerations."
Kuwait's Gulf neighbor Saudi Arabia promised an additional $60 million, saying that would boost its existing round of funding to a total $250 million, though it did not specify the time period. It promised $300 million at last year's conference.
Nearby Qatar also promised $60 million Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said the Lebanese government exerted its utmost efforts to address the repercussions of the Syrian crisis, pointing out that the Syrian refugees have become ¼ of the Lebanese population.
The appeal launched last month is the largest in the history of the United Nations, which estimates that the conflict has rolled back human development gains in Syria by 35 years, with half the population now living in poverty.
The $1.5 billion pledged via the United Nations at a similar meeting last year in Kuwait was used in Syria and surrounding countries to provide food rations, medicine, drinking water and shelters. The largest donations at that conference came from Gulf Arab governments.
On the field:
A car bomb planted by rebels linked to al Qaeda killed at least 26 people in Syria's northern city of Jarablus on Wednesday, most of them rival opposition fighters, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Syria's rebel-held northern and eastern territories are mired in the worst episode of internecine clashes since the nearly 3-year-old uprising began, with hundreds killed in over a week of fighting between an alliance of rebel groups and an al Qaeda affiliated group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
REUTERS/AP
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