LONDON
The U.K. will provide resettlement to "thousands more" Syrian refugees, British Prime Minister David Cameron announced Friday morning.
Cameron’s pledge came following calls from European counterparts, human rights and charity organizations and some leading figures such as Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and former Foreign Secretary David Miliband.
"Britain will act with its head and heart [to find long-term solutions to the crisis]," Cameron told the media in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon.
The refugees are expected to come from U.N. camps on the border with Syria, and not from among refugees in Europe already.
Earlier, the British premier had said that accepting more refugees into the U.K. was not the answer to the refugee crisis and claimed that the U.K. was already doing its bit.
In response to Cameron's earlier remarks, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muiznieks, said Thursday: "I am seriously concerned by the British prime minister's position that the U.K. should not provide protection to more refugees from the Middle East."
Muiznieks said that at the moment, the U.K. was doing much less than other European countries, like Germany or Sweden, which gave refuge to thousands of Syrians. "Additional tragedies and shocking pictures could be avoided if political leaders had the courage and determination to uphold human rights standards and common European values," the commissioner said.
Later on Friday, PM David Cameron announced an additional £100 million in aid to help victims of the Syrian conflict.
“Today I can announce that we will provide a further £100 million, taking our total contribution to over £1 billion -- that is the U.K.’s largest ever response to a humanitarian crisis,” Cameron said, speaking at a joint press conference with Spanish counterpart Mariano Rajoy in Madrid, according to the official website of the U.K. PM’s Office.
“Sixty million pounds of this additional funding will go to help Syrians still in Syria. The rest will go to neighboring countries -- to Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon where Syrian refugees now account for one quarter of the population,” he said.
Cameron said that the migration crisis that the continent is facing “is clearly the biggest challenge facing countries across Europe today”.
“More than 220,000 people were detected crossing the Mediterranean to Europe in the first 6 months of this year,” he said.
He recalled that a big part of them come from Syria. “Terrorized first by Assad and now by [Daesh] too, more than 11 million people have been driven from their homes,” he said.
Cameron also spoke of a comprehensive approach in dealing with the refugee crisis.
According to the U.K. PM’s Office website, the approach includes stabilizing countries where the migrants are coming from, seeking a solution to the crisis in Syria, pushing for the formation of a new unity government in Libya, busting the criminal gangs, saving lives using the aid budget, and funding the refugee camps.
Meanwhile, British media coverage of the tragic deaths of two Syrian brothers -- three-year-old Aylan Kurdi and his five-year-old brother Galip -- caused public outcry.
The British premier said that "he was moved" with the photographs of two young brothers who were washed up to Turkey coast after their attempt to cross to a Greek island failed tragically in the sea.
A parliament petition asking the U.K. government to act to assist refugees is now signed by more than 350,000 people.
Petitions signed by more than 100,000 people can be debated at the parliament.
Germany was the largest recipient of new asylum claims in the EU in 2014, with an approximate 173,100 asylum applications.
The U.K. received 31,300 new applications for asylum by the end of 2014.
According to United Nations, there are 1,938,999 registered refugees in Turkey alone as of August 25, 2015.
