Cameron in Lebanon amid refugee crisis

British Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday arrived in the Lebanese capital Beirut, where he met with his Lebanese counterpart Tamam Salam.

The British premier visited a refugee camp during his one-day stay in Lebanon, which hosts more than 1.1 million Syrian refugees.

The civil war in Syria has left at least 250,000 people dead since it erupted amid mass protests against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2011.

The conflict drove roughly half the population from their homes, creating around 4 million refugees while internally displacing 7.6 million more Syrians internally in the process.

Limits on refugee influx

Cameron announced earlier in September that the UK is willing to accept 20,000 Syrian refugees over the next five years from camps in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan.

However, Cameron has staunchly criticized an EU proposal to distribute asylum seekers based on a mandatory quota system, stating that the UK would not take part in it.

Meanwhile, the British prime minister announced that 100 million pounds (136.6 million euros, $152 million) would be allocated for humanitarian aid to address the refugee crisis in Syria.

At least 40 million pounds (54.41 million euros) is earmarked for assistance to Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan, where more than 3.5 million Syrian refugees are being hosted in the three countries, according to UNHCR figures.

The UK has granted nearly 5,000 Syrian asylum since the conflict erupted in 2011, accepting merely 216 Syrian refugees over the past year, reported Reuters news agency.

The figures are significantly lower than other European countries, such as France, Sweden and Germany, where thousands of refugees arrived over the weekend.

ls/rg (AFP, AP, Reuters, dpa)