Ban calls for success of Kuwait pledge conference for Syrian refugees

ANKARA

United Nations (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was saddened and humbled by what he had witnessed at Kawrgosik refugee camp in Iraq, just hours before leaving for the donor conference in Kuwait on Wednesday which is expected to gather a record amount of financial assets for humanitarian assistance to Syria. 

“What I have seen is heartbreaking,” Ban said after meeting a family with two young girls at a refugee tent in northeast Iraq, according to the written UN statement distributed to the press on Tuesday afternoon.

The first Kuwaiti pledging conference for Syria took place in January 2013 in Kuwait City and raised about $1.5 billion. The current funding needs for Syrian humanitarian efforts are estimated at $6.5 billion, the sum which is expected as the total pledge of this second conference in Kuwait.

“We will try to mobilize all the necessary humanitarian assistance for these people – tents, water, sanitation, education – and all that they need, we will provide. I am also concerned about this cold weather so we will try to provide winterization assistance,” Ban said on the eve of Kuwait’s conference.

The pledging conference on January 15, described by the UN as “a very important humanitarian pledging event,” will be hosted by Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah and attended by other regional leaders.

Kawrgosik Camp was established at the border of the Iraqi Kurdish Administration and Syria with the help of the UN's refugee agency UNHCR in August 2013. It was originally designed to shelter some 15,000 Syrian refugees who migrated to that part of Iraq.

The Regional Kurdish Administration has established other refugee camps in the area, including transit sites with the humanitarian corridor to northeast Syria.

“I highly commend such commitment to humanitarian principles,” Ban stressed while expressing his gratefulness to the local Kurdish Administration for hosting more than 200,000 refugees from Syria.

“Wherever they come from, whatever their situations, their suffering means injustice. They need peace and dignity and justice,” Ban said.

“The international community should support these refugees until they are able to return to their homes,” Ban said before leaving for Kuwait.

Ban Ki-moon also talked about the final prospects for peace in Syria, saying that he and UN Joint Special Representative Lakhdar Brahimi “are working very hard with international partners to bring peace (to Syria) through negotiations.”

“I sincerely hope that with the solidarity of the international community and strong support for a Syrian-led peace process, these refugees will be able to return to their homes with hope and dignity,” Ban added. 

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