Photo Courtesy of Washington Post
The British Prime Minister David Cameron will announce imminently that Britain will take in “thousands” of Syrian refugees amid growing calls for the U.K. government to show greater moral leadership in the refugee crisis engulfing Europe, according to British media reports.
Although Britain is a significant donor of humanitarian aid to Syria, there have been increasing calls for the country to open its doors to more refugees following the heart-breaking pictures of the 3-year-old boy who washed up dead on a beach in Turkey.
Cameron pledged on Thursday that Britain would fulfill its “moral responsibilities,” and added that “as a father” he felt “deeply moved” by the image of the dead child.
He also told the BBC: “We are taking thousands of people and we will take thousands of people.” It was a striking turnaround for the premier, who a day earlier said that the answer to the crisis wasn’t simply taking in “more and more” refugees.
While Cameron didn’t offer any specific details, the Guardian newspaper said that those selected will likely come directly from U.N. refugee camps on the Syrian border. The Daily Telegraph said that an announcement was expected “in the coming days.”
Cameron has come under huge pressure, at home and abroad, with critics saying that Britain isn’t doing enough to respond to the crisis.
“We simply cannot walk by on the other side of that little boy that we were all so touched by,” Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, said in the Scottish Parliament.
At a press conference in Paris, the French President Francois Hollande appeared to take aim at Britain when he said: “There are countries – I am not going to name them here because we are here to work with everybody – and these countries are not shouldering their moral obligations.”
Only 216 Syrian refugees have been resettled to Britain under a government program, and nearly 5,000 have been granted asylum after making it to the country on their own since 2011 – much smaller numbers than those in other European countries like Germany or Sweden.