David Cameron visits Lebanese refugee camp - the Guardian

Prime minister, speaking from UN camp close to Syrian border, says £1bn in British aid discourages refugees risking lives in Europe
Hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Syrian civil war have been discouraged from “risking their lives” to travel to Europe by British aid totalling £1bn, which has helped fund refugee camps in the region, David Cameron has said.

Amid tight security, the British prime minister travelled by Chinook helicopter from Beirut airport to a UNHCR camp in the Bekaa valley, less than a mile from the Syrian border, to call for the EU to focus its attention on helping refugees in the region.

Cameron underlined Britain’s belief that aid should be focused on the region by announcing he has appointed the Conservative MP Richard Harrington as a home office minister with sole responsibility for Syrian refugees.

As Cameron visited Lebanon, the home secretary, Theresa May, prepared to tellEU interior ministers at a meeting in Brussels that the EU should not set quotas for refugees. The prime minister said in Lebanon that £1bn in British aid provided to the region since 2012 has helped to ensure that just 3% of Syria’s 11 million refugees have sought asylum in Europe.

Speaking during a visit to the Bekaa valley camp, where he was invited into a tent where a mother lives with her 10 children, Cameron said: “Around 3% of the 11 million Syrians forced from their homes have sought asylum in Europe. Without British aid, hundreds of thousands more could be risking their lives seeking to get to Europe. So these funds are part of our comprehensive approach to tackle migration from the region.

The prime minister added that other EU countries should follow the example of Britain, which is the second largest bilateral aid donor to the region after the US.

Cameron is paying a one-day visit to refugee camps in Lebanon – known as informal tented settlements – a week after he announced that Britain is to accept an extra 20,000 refugees from camps in Syria’s neighbouring countries. The prime minister made the announcement in the wake of widespread public shock following the publication of pictures Alan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian refugee, whose body was photographed washed up on a Turkish beach after his family failed to reach Greece. - the Guardian

David Cameron visits Lebanese refugee camp

David Cameron: EU countries must do more to fund refugee ...

Video: David Cameron visits Syrian refugee camp in Lebanon - telegraph