Participants of an international refugee conference held Tuesday in Berlin agreed that the international community must give more attention to the situation in countries hosting Syrian refugees, a statement of the German government said.

At the request of the United Nations and countries such as Lebanon and Jordan that are hosting millions of Syrian refugees, Germany convened the one-day conference to focus not only on the refugees' humanitarian needs but on the necessity to maintain stability of host countries struggling to cope with refugee flows.

Representatives from more than 35 countries and international organizations have attended the conference.

Describing the situation of Syrian refugees as the "largest refugee catastrophe of our time", German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said after the conference that it was not only dramatic for refugees themselves, but also threatened the already fragile stability of host countries.

Participants of the conference therefore, so Steinmeier, have agreed that the international community must concentrate more on the situation in those host countries when providing help.

The minister announced that Germany would increase its funding to help deal with this issue. For the period 2015-2017, his country will provide a total of 500 million euros (around 637 million U.S. dollars) for humanitarian aid and development activities.

Statistics showed more than nine million Syrians have become refugees because of war and the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS). More than three million Syrians have fled their country, with most taking shelter in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq. Endit

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