President Barack Obama on Tuesday said the United States would boost humanitarian aid to Syria and urged other nations to do more to help the United Nations, which is struggling to assist some 4 million people in the war-torn country and more than 700,000 who have fled it.
Obama said he authorized an additional $155 million in aid for food, medical care and clothing for Syrians and refugees, bringing the U.S. total to $365 million. He issued a video statement on youtube.com with Arabic subtitles speaking directly to Syrians.
Obama has been criticized for not doing more to aid rebels trying to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, even as the humanitarian cost of the conflict has skyrocketed and Western nations worry about the growing clout of Islamic militants among the rebels.
Obama has said he has wrestled with whether a U.S. military intervention in Syria’s 22-month-old civil war would help resolve the bloody conflict or make things worse. The United Nations said more than 60,000 people have died in the uprising.
On Tuesday, he said the aid would help bring food and clean water to Syrians. “It means immunizations for 1 million Syrian children,” Obama said in a statement. “American aid means winter supplies for more than half a million people in Aleppo, Homs and Dayr az Zawr.”
The United Nations has said it needs about $1 billion to help refugees and another $519 million to help people inside Syria but on Monday it had raised only 3 percent of that target.
“Today I also call on the international community to do more to help these Syrians in need and to contribute to the latest U.N. humanitarian appeal,” Obama said.
The United States is the largest single aid donor in the crisis but the assistance has been provided quietly, said White House spokesman Jay Carney.
“It is a cruel fact that human aid providers and recipients are being deliberately targeted in Syria,” Carney told reporters. “Our priority is to get American aid to those who need it without endangering them or our humanitarian partners.”
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(Reuters)
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4 Responses
You are kidding!! Where is the money coming from? There is such debt! Can s/o please explain!!!
Wonder how much those dirt-poor Saudi’s have doled out to their Arab brethren. And what about the destitute UAE? Hey, what’s $365M when we’re $16T in hock? I am sure those grateful Syrians will never forget our generosity!
$365 Million Dollars would feed a lot of starving and homeless people in America but our wonderful politians don’t bother looking within.
Wannabe Ayatollah Obummer is quick to give away money we don’t have. He should realize that giving the monies to the U.N. won’t buy him a 12 oz. bottle of soda in the world arena. All of the countries who despise America will continue to do so anyway. Doesn’t he realize that these same people, or their children, who America is helping will some day pickup a weapon against either America or Israel?
The victims of Superstorm Sandy should simply freeze to death and/or starve so that Barry ‘O can ‘give’ money to his fellow Islamic brethren. Isn’t that special?