MOSCOW, October 12 (RIA Novosti) - The European Commission (EC) said Sunday that it will allocate 3.9 million euros ($4.9 million) in humanitarian funding to help meet the needs of the thousands of people who have fled to Turkey from the Syrian town of Kobani to escape the Islamic State (IS).
“Over 180,000 Syrians have been displaced to Turkey by the fierce fighting in Kobane [Kobani]. This further adds to the impact of what is the biggest humanitarian crisis of our times. We are directing urgently needed funds to help the humanitarian organizations on the ground deal with the massive influx of refugees,” Kristalina Georgieva, European Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response, is cited as saying by the EC.
The funding will help humanitarian organizations provide Kobani refugees with water, food, shelter and medicine, the Commission informed in a statement.
For the past several weeks, Islamic State (IS) fighters have besieged Kobani, also known as Ayn al-Arab, one of the largest towns in the Kurdish region of Syria bordering Turkey.
The IS, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), has been fighting the Syrian government since 2012. In June 2014, the group expanded its attacks to northern and western Iraq and declared an Islamic caliphate on the territories that had fallen under its control. A US-led coalition is currently carrying out airstrikes against IS positions in Syria and Iraq.
