I WISH to draw attention to the plight of Syrian refugees and in particular the fact that the UK has so only taken in about 200 of them.

Every day we see on the news the thousands of people who have endured unimaginable hardships to reach the relatively safe haven of Europe and Europe – with a few notable exceptions such as Germany and Sweden – seems to have no response.

In the last few days David Cameron has bowed to public pressure and is now saying we will take 20,000 refugees over five years. This is far too small a number in view of the thousands who need help now.

Here in Kington I am sure we could welcome two or three families and other small towns could do the same, with larger towns taking proportionately more. If the government agrees to cover housing costs I am sure local people would rally round to provide other things which families would need and to help them settle in.

Before Assad started killing his own people just for peacefully demonstrating, Syria was a beautiful country. It was not a third world country, its people were educated, it had a developed economy and a large number of Syrians speak English. The UK has a proud history of offering sanctuary to people who are being persecuted in their own country; from French Huguenots in the 17th century, to Ugandan Asians in the 1970s. Surely we can open our hearts to a few of the thousands of Syrians who are caught between the forces of Assad on one side and the extremists of ISIS on the other; who when they finally manage to escape are subjected to more horrendous treatment at the hands of people traffickers.

If we had acted to restrain Assad at the beginning, instead of caving into the Russians and Chinese, the situation could have been resolved and there would have been no rise of ISIS.

ANNE TITLEY Kington