UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called on countries to resettle nearly half a million Syrian refugees in the next three years, though only Italy, Sweden, and the United States have immediately announced concrete plans to play a part.
Ban, at the start of a ministerial conference hosted by the UN refugee agency UNHCR in Geneva on Wednesday, said: "This demands an exponential increase in global solidarity."
The United Nations is aiming to resettle some 480,000 refugees, about 10 per cent of those now in neighbouring countries, by the end of 2018, but concedes it is battling to overcome widespread fear and political wrangling.
Ban urged countries to pledge new and additional legal pathways for admitting the refugees, such as resettlement or humanitarian admission, family reunions, as well as labour and study opportunities.
"Success at this high-level meeting today will drive momentum in the months ahead," Ban told reporters, pointing to a series of upcoming conferences.
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Italy and Sweden were among those to make new concrete pledges to resettle refugees, an annual increase of some 1500 and 3000 refugees respectively, but not all of them would be Syrians.
US Deputy Secretary of State Heather Higginbottom, referring to commitments already announced by the Obama administration, said: "We have significantly increased the number of interviewing officials at our refugee processing centers in the region so that we can resettle at least 10,000 Syrian refugees by the end of September."
The five-year conflict has killed at least 250,000 people and driven nearly five million refugees abroad, mostly to neighbouring Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq.
"These are people with death at their back and a wall in their face," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said.
