London: British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Monday that United Kingdom should fulfils its moral responsibility to help Syria refugees.
At the same time he proposed that “Britain should resettle up to 20,000 Syrian refugees over the rest of this Parliament,” and added, “We'll show the world that Britain is a country of extraordinary compassion - standing up for our values and helping those in need.”
However he also said, “But we must use our head and our heart with a comprehensive approach that tackles the causes of the problem as well as the consequences.”
Cameron pointed out, “Last week we announced a further £100 million in aid for conflict in Syria, taking our total contribution to over £1 billion.”
PM: It's absolutely right that Britain fulfils its moral responsibility to help #Syria refugees
— UK Prime Minister (@Number10gov) September 7, 2015
PM: But we must use our head and our heart with a comprehensive approach that tackles the causes of the problem as well as the consequences
— UK Prime Minister (@Number10gov) September 7, 2015
PM: Last week we announced a further £100 million in aid for conflict in #Syria, taking our total contribution to over £1 billion
— UK Prime Minister (@Number10gov) September 7, 2015
PM: We are proposing that Britain should resettle up to 20,000 Syrian refugees over the rest of this Parliament #Syria
— UK Prime Minister (@Number10gov) September 7, 2015
PM: We'll show the world that Britain is a country of extraordinary compassion - standing up for our values and helping those in need.
— UK Prime Minister (@Number10gov) September 7, 2015
Meanwhile, Turkish authorities have detained a fifth suspect over the deaths of 12 Syrian migrants in two boat sinking last week, including a three-year-old boy whose image became a viral symbol of the tragedy of refugees, a report said on Monday.
The suspect, a Turkish national, was detained in the Aegean resort city of Bodrum by Turkish police on accusations of people trafficking and causing multiple deaths, the official Anatolia news agency reported, as per AFP.
Four other suspected traffickers, all Syrian nationals, were detained last week on similar charges.
Twelve migrants drowned on Wednesday when two boats sank in Turkish waters, in the latest tragedy to hit people seeking to cross the Aegean to Greece.
But attention has focused on three-year-old Aylan, whose tiny body was photographed washed up on a beach in the resort of Bodrum, in an image that rapidly went viral on social media.
His four-year-old brother, Ghaleb, and their mother, Rihana also drowned when their boat sank.
Reports have said that the family, from the Syrian mainly Kurdish town of Kobane, wanted to eventually reach Canada.
His father Abdullah, who survived, has since returned to Kobane.
There has over the last weeks been a dramatic spike in the numbers of migrants - mainly from Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Africa - seeking to leave Turkey by sea for Greece in the hope of finding new lives in the European Union.
(With AFP inputs)