Britain to take 'thousands more Syrian refugees': Cameron

Britain will take in thousands more Syrian refugees, Prime Minister David Cameron said on Sept. 4 amid growing pressure at home and abroad to address the crisis.

"Given the scale of the crisis and the suffering of the people, today I can announce that we will do more, providing resettlement for thousands more Syrian refugees," he told reporters on a visit to Lisbon.
 
"We will continue with our approach of taking them from the refugee camps," he added, in a reference to UN camps on the Syrian border.
 
"This provides them with a more direct and safe route to the UK, rather than risking the hazardous journey which has tragically cost so many lives," the prime minister said.
 
Cameron did not specify how many more refugees Britain would accept, saying only that more details would be announced next week and that the resettlement scheme would be kept "under review".
 
"Britain will act with our head and our heart, providing refuge for those in need while working on a long term solution to the Syria crisis," Cameron said.
 
Britain has faced mounting pressure to accept a greater share of Syrian refugees, especially after the publication this week of harrowing images of a three-year-old Syrian toddler found dead on a Turkish beach.
 
A petition to parliament urging Britain to accept more refugees has garnered nearly 360,000 signatures, while campaign group Avaaz said that 2,000 Britons had volunteered to host refugee families.
     
Several editorials in Britain harked back to the times when Britain accepted huge numbers of refugees before and after World War II, and around the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
 
Britain has accepted 216 Syrian refugees under a special government scheme over...