Pledges top $10B for Syria refugees

Leaders: Prospects of ending war dim

LONDON — World leaders pledged more than $10 billion Thursday to help fund schools, shelter and jobs for refugees from Syria’s civil war, money that British Prime Minister David Cameron said “will save lives, will give hope, will give people the chance of a future.”

But participants at the aid conference acknowledged that prospects for ending the conflict have rarely been worse: Peace talks are suspended, fighting is intensifying, Russia and the West are at odds, and millions of Syrians are suffering from bombardment, homelessness and hunger.

“The situation in Syria is as close to hell as we are likely to find on this Earth,” said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

U.S. Secretary John Kerry was upbeat.

“After almost five years of fighting, it’s pretty incredible that aswe come here in London in 2016, the situation on the ground is actuallyworse,” he said.

The one-day meeting, held under tight security at a conference center near Parliament, aspired to bring new urgency to the effort to help the 4.6 million Syrians who have sought refuge in neighboring countries, including Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. Another 6 million people or more are displaced within Syria, and 250,000 have been killed.

Previous calls for international donations have come up short, and the five-year war has driven a chaotic exodus of hundreds of thousands of refugees to Europe. Thursday’s pledges of no State more

General: Saudis ready to send troops

CAIRO— A Saudi military spokesman said Thursday that the kingdom is ready to send ground troops to Syria to fight the Islamic State group provided coalition leaders agree during an upcoming meeting in Brussels.

Brig. Gen. Ahmed Asiri said Saudi Arabia has taken part in coalition airstrikes against militants since theU.S.-led campaign began in September 2014, but could nowprovide ground troops. TheU.S. is scheduled to convene a meeting of defense ministers fromcountries fighting the Islamic State in Brussels this month. are intended to slow that migration, by creating school places and secure jobs for Syrian refugees in the Middle East, and economic support for the host nations.

Cameron said participants had pledged almost $6 billion for 2016, and another $5 billion by 2020.

Cameron called the conference— hosted by Britain, Germany, Kuwait, Norway and the U.N. — “a real breakthrough, not just in terms ofmoneybut in terms of how we handle these refugee crises.”

The tally falls short of the $9 billion the U.N. and regional countries said was needed for 2016 alone, but it was an improvement on half-hearted previous fundraising efforts. Last year’s conference, in Kuwait, raised just half its $7 billion target, forcing cuts to programs such as refugee food aid.

Aid groupswelcomed the money, but slammed the international community for allowing the war to go on.

Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of theRedCross, said theworldhadshowna “lack of political action and ambition to resolve the crisis.”

Cameron said the international community would stand with Syrians for “as long as it takes to secure peace,” acknowledging that the goals of a cease-fire followed by a transitional government are distant.

Thursday’s meeting opened hours after the latest U.N.-led bid to start peace talks in Geneva was suspended for threeweeks.

Kerry blamed Syria’s government and Russia for the peace talks stalling. He said he and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had spoken by phone Thursday and agreed to continue discussing “how to implement the cease-fire.”

Aid workers warn of a “lost generation” of Syrians if some 700,000 refugee children who are not attending school don’t get an education.