David Cameron pledges £100m for Syria refugee camps

Arriving in Brussels for an emergency EU summit on the migrant crisis, the prime minister today said £40m of the additional cash would be used to support the underfunded World Food Programme.

“We must make sure that people in refugee camps are properly fed and looked after, not least to help them, but also to stop people wanting to make or thinking of making this very, very difficult and very dangerous journey to Europe,” he said.

This news comes after the first Syrian refugees and migrants to take part in the government’s resettlement programme arrived in Britain.

‘We will resettle 20,000 Syrians’

Their arrivals marked the inaugural steps to fufilling David Cameron’s pledge to resettle 20,000 Syrians over the next four and a half years through the expansion of the vulnerable persons resettlement scheme.

A Home Office spokeswoman said: “We are working closely with the UNHCR and local authorities to make sure we are ready to welcome more Syrians who desperately need our assistance.

“Today a number of people have arrived in the UK as part of the vulnerable persons resettlement (VPR) scheme. As the prime minister announced earlier this month, we will resettle 20,000 Syrians over the course of this parliament through this scheme.”

Yesterday also saw EU countries agreeing to resettle 120,000 migrants fleeing conflict in the Middle East and Africa, despite a number of countries opposing the proposal. Britain has opted out of the quota system.