GERMAN PRESIDENT URGES MORE ASSISTANCE FOR SYRIAN REFUGEES

        Goettingen, German, 19 Muharram 1435/22 November 2013 (MINA) – German President Joachim Gauck has called on the government on Thursday to take on additional Syrian refugees.

       Gauck asserting that Germany had the capacity to provide further humanitarian assistance, Anadolu Agency quoted by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

       “In the face of this humanitarian catastrophe we can do more,” Gauck said during his visit to the refugee camp in Friedland, in the north city of Goettingen.

        “We have not reached the limit of what we can achieve, and I am certain that the new government also sees it that way.”

        DW online media report that Gauck met more than a dozen refugees who were among the first of 5,000 Syrians offered shelter in Germany earlier this year, also listened to their personal stories.

        “We have heard reports of destroyed houses, ruined lives and trauma. It is very different when you look into peoples faces, than when you just read statistics,” he added.

          German President has underlined the need for stronger support for the refugees and praised Turkey and Jordan for their efforts by hosting hundreds of thousands of Syrians.

          Despite the large scale of the tragedy in Syria, German government has offered temporary asylum to 5,000 Syrian refugees. Around 1,000 Syrians, most of them women and children, have so far arrived to the country.

         According to UN estimates more than 120,000 people have died in the nearly three-year conflict. Millions have fled the country, mostly into neighboring Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. (T/P09/E1).

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA).