LONDON: Britain’s opposition Labour party yesterday called on the government to join a UN programme to help resettle the most vulnerable Syrian refugees, putting pressure on Prime Minister David Cameron to fall into line with other Western states.
While Cameron’s government is the second biggest donor of humanitarian aid to Syria, it has not joined an initiative led by the United Nations’ refugee agency which asks European and other states to accept a share of 30,000 Syrians displaced by the country’s civil war and now in refugee camps in the region.
Britain has granted around 1,500 Syrian nationals asylum in the last year, but has not agreed to take cases directly from the camps. Eighteen countries, including France and Germany, have so far joined the scheme.
Labour called a vote on the issue to be held next week. They said this would mean accepting a “few hundred” refugees, including torture victims and orphans.
REUTERS
