Seven million Syrians, or nearly one-third of the population, have
been displaced by the country's civil war, but international aid to them
has been a "drop in the sea" of humanitarian need, a top UN official
said Monday.
The funding gaps remain wide, with donor countries
sending less than one-third the money needed to help those displaced,
Tarik Kurdi, the representative of the U.N. refugee agency in Syria,
told The Associated Press.
Syria's brutal two-and-a-half-year-old
conflict has also claimed more than 100,000 lives, including hundreds
who — according to the U.S. — were killed in chemical weapons attacks by
the Syrian regime near Damascus on Aug. 21.
Syrian President
Bashar Assad's government has denied involvement, instead blaming rebels
for the attacks. Neither the U.S. nor the Assad regime has presented
proof in public to back up the allegations.
In Washington,
President Barack Obama was lobbying Congress to support a military
strike to punish the Assad regime for its alleged chemical weapons use.
Obama initially seemed poised to launch military action without asking
Congress, but over the weekend changed his mind. A vote is expected
after Congress returns from summer recess Sept. 7.
On Monday,
Obama was to meet with former political rival Sen. John McCain at the
White House, hoping the foreign policy hawk will help sell the idea of
U.S. military intervention.
On Capitol Hill, senior administration
officials briefed lawmakers in private on Sunday to explain why the
U.S. was compelled to act against Assad. Further meetings were planned
from Monday to Wednesday.
The Arab League, meanwhile, stopped
short of endorsing military action. In an emergency meeting in Cairo on
Sunday, it called on the United Nations and the international community
to take "deterrent" measures under international law to stop the Syrian
regime's crimes, but could not agree on whether to back U.S. military
strikes.
Two of Assad's most influential foreign backers, China
and Russia, lined up against Washington's new attempt to make the case
for a military strike.
China is "highly concerned" about possible
unilateral military action against Syria and believes the international
community must "avoid complicating the Syrian issue and dragging the
Middle East down into further disaster," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong
Lei said in Beijing on Monday.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey
Lavrov, meanwhile, dismissed U.S. information given to Moscow on the
alleged chemical weapons attack as "absolutely unconvincing."
There
was "nothing specific" in the evidence presented by Washington, Lavrov
said. "No geographic coordinates, no names, no proof that the tests were
carried out by the professionals."
He did not say what tests he was referring to.
Lavrov said U.S. officials told the Russian government they cannot share all the evidence because some of it is classified.
On
Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the U.S. received new
physical evidence in the form of blood and hair samples that show sarin
gas was used in the Aug. 21 attack.
Kerry said the U.S. must respond with its credibility on the line.
The Syria conflict erupted in March 2011 as an uprising against Assad that quickly transformed into a civil war.
The
fighting has displaced 7 million Syrians, including 5 million who fled
their homes but are still in Syria and 2 million who crossed into
neighboring countries, said Kurdi, the U.N. official.
Before the outbreak of the conflict, Syria had a population of about 23 million people.
Kurdi said the need for aid is far greater than what the international community has provided so far.
"Whatever
efforts we have exerted and whatever the U.N. has provided in
humanitarian aid, it is only a drop in the sea of humanitarian needs in
Syria," he said. The funding gap "is very, very wide," he added. source:The Jakarta Post
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