GCC urges world to do more for Syrian refugees

Riyadh: Gulf states yesterday called on the international community to take greater responsibility in aiding Syrian refugees after the states came under fire for not taking in enough people fleeing war.

The foreign ministers of the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), after a meeting in Riyadh, called for a political solution in Syria as part of a worldwide effort to tackle the refugee crisis.

A statement called on “the international community to assume its responsibilities to help Syrian refugees”. Hundreds of thousands of refugees, the majority escaping Syria’s civil war, have fled to Europe this year, posing EU leaders with the continent’s biggest influx of migrants since World War II.

As EU ministers squabble over solutions to the crisis, Gulf countries have come under fire for not taking their fair share of refugees. The GCC statement said the countries had accommodated “Syrian brothers, who are treated like residents and benefit from free healthcare, education and the right to work” since Syria’s war began in March 2011. The ministers said the six states had taken in hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees, mainly from Lebanon and Jordan