Syria Refugee Crisis: Is your country doing its fair share?

Action needed on aid, refuge, and to end the bloodshed

The arrival of tens of thousands of Syrians to Europe’s borders and the shocking deaths of women, children and men on their perilous journey has been a sharp reminder to the international community of the tragedy engulfing the people of Syria. Syrians put themselves and their families at so much risk only out of sheer desperation.

The international community has failed so far to address this spiralling catastrophe.

Do you think it’s fair?

In Syria, more than 220,000 people have been killed and more than one million injured since 2011. 10 million people in the country do not have enough to eat. More than half of Syria’s hospitals have been destroyed or badly damaged. When people are facing such a catastrophe, they need the international community to help. However, most wealthy countries are not contributing their fair share for aid response - humanitarian appeals are now only funded at 50 per cent.

They have also failed to provide safe and legal routes for Syrians to their countries, in particular not doing enough to ensure vulnerable refugees are offered resettlement and other forms of humanitarian admissions in sufficient numbers.

• Lebanon with a population of just over 4 million people has taken in 1.2 million refugees; a quarter of its population are now Syria refugees. The United States with a population of just over 318 million people has pledged to take in 11,423 refugees, just 8% of its fair share.

• As a host country Jordan is estimated to spend $870 million a year supporting Syrian refugees; if it were treated as a traditional donor, Jordan would have contributed 5,622% of its fair share. France has contributed $67.9 million in response to the UN appeal for the crisis, just 22% of its fair share.

• Germany had contributed 75% of its’ fair share of funds and 112% of resettlement places.

• Many countries continue to fuel the violence through arms and ammunitions transfers to warring factions in Syria, it’s time to end these transfers and stop the bloodshed.

We are calling for urgent and immediate action by the international community to deal with this deepening crisis: to fully fund the aid response, to offer refuge to those who have fled the country including through resettlement of a fair share of the refugee population, to halt the transfer of arms and ammunition and to revive concerted efforts towards a resolution of the crisis.