All we can do for Syria now is donate to the relief effort

Politics is blocked a solution to the cause of the crisis is not likely any time soon. But we can at least treat the symptoms

Some 18 million British children, women and men have fled their homes as a result of the civil war that has torn Britain apart over the last two years. About 280,000 people have been killed, and many more wounded. That, proportionately translated, is the scale of the Syrian tragedy. And there is no end in sight.

The Guardian today documents individual human stories from this disaster. They are more moving than any statistic. But the numbers are eloquent too. Some 6,000 refugees pour out of Syria every day, straining international humanitarian aid resources and destabilising the country's neighbours. Syrian refugees already make up 10% of the population of Jordan. That's like the whole of Bulgaria moving to Britain.