Syria's neighbours meet in Zaatari refugee camp

The foreign ministers of countries neighbouring Syria were due to meet in the Zaatari camp for Syrian refugees near the Jordanian town of Mafraq today, Sunday, an official source in Amman has reported. According to Jordan’s Petra news agency, the meeting will include the foreign ministers of Jordan, Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt, as well as Lebanon’s Minister of Social Affairs, Rashid Derbas, and UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres.

On Saturday, Jordan’s Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh discussed “recent developments in the region” with his Iraqi counterpart Hoshyar Zebari and Lebanon’s Derbas. The situation in Syria was high on the agenda.

Judeh and Zebari stressed the importance of reaching a political solution to the crisis in Syria with the participation of all sections of the Syrian people. “The international community has a responsibility to help and support neighbouring countries which receive hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees,” they added.

In a meeting with the UNHCR, Judeh discussed the “implications” of the conflict in Syria for its neighbours and the importance of international support.

Last Wednesday Jordan opened a third camp for Syrian refugees, with a capacity of about 130,000 people, to ease the pressure on the Zaatari camp which already hosts more than 100,000 refugees.

The UN reported recently that nearly 6.5 million Syrians have been displaced internally and nearly 2.6 million more have fled as refugees to neighbouring countries, mainly Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, around 150,000 people have been killed since the start of the conflict in Syria in March, 2011.