The United Nations special envoy to Syria warned on Tuesday of a new humanitarian crisis in Idlib as the region begins to shift its attention to the rebel-held region. "We were and are concerned on the humanitarian side by Idlib. Because Idlib is the big new challenge, 2.5 million people," Staffan de Mistura told a press conference with EU diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini. "And you will not believe that all of them are terrorists of course. There are women, children, civilians, and this is looming up there," he added. He warned at a Brussels donor conference that the region risked suffering the same fate as Aleppo, seized in a Russian-backed Syrian offensive in 2016, and Eastern Ghouta, retaken by the regime shortly after an alleged chemical attack in early April. "So we hope that this would be an occasion for making sure that Idlib does not become the new Aleppo, the new Eastern Ghouta, because the dimensions are completely different," de Mistura added. The EU and UN on Tuesday began a two-day push to drum up fresh aid pledges for war-torn Syria and reinvigorate the faltering Geneva peace process as the conflict enters its eighth year. The meeting comes in the wake of strikes by the United States, France and Britain on Syrian regime installations in response to the chemical weapons attack in Douma which has been widely blamed on Damascus. Mistura said a UN Security Council retreat in a secluded farmhouse in Sweden at the weekend called in a bid to overcome its paralysis on Syria had lowered the "temperature" but failed to find a political solution. "After two weeks of terribly tense and rhetorically intense meetings, there was a need again to bring down the temperature," Mistura said. "Has this avoided or completely resolved the division which exists in the Security Council on Syria, which is the biggest problem the UN has... no," he added. "Has the atmosphere gone down and the understanding that there are common issues that can be faced together, yes," Mogherini and de Mistura both called on Russia, Iran and Turkey -- the three powers involved in the so-called Astana process seeking peace in Syria -- to do more to reach a ceasefire. "The main message is that Syria is not a chessboard, its not geopolitical game," former Italian foreign minister Mogherini told the news conference. "I believe they (the three Astana process countries) have not only a responsibility but also an interest in making the ceasefire work." The head of UN aid agency UNOCHA chief Mark Lowcock said the two-day Brussels gathering needed to raise some $8 billion in pledges for work inside Syria and with refugees in neighboring countries, warning that some programs may have to be cut back if funds are not forthcoming. "We are quite desperately short of resources," he told reporters, saying UNOCHA managed to raise only half of the funds it needed in 2017 and urging Damascus and its main backer Russia to do more to help civilians suffering in the war.