International donors were meeting Brussels on Wednesday in an effort to gather $9 billion to help Syrian refugees, who have been uprooted from their country by its bloody war. "The conference should not only be a fundraising exercise. It must be accompanied by a political message on the conditionality of aid for reconstruction and the denial of impunity for Syrian leaders guilty of crimes," a European diplomat told AFP. The UN estimates that $5.5 billion (4.4 billion euros) are needed to help the approximately 5.6 million Syrians forced to flee their country to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt. A further $3.3 billion is earmarked for populations inside Syria facing a humanitarian situation described by the Medecins du Monde aid agency as "unsustainable". After two days of talks with humanitarian organizations, foreign ministers and senior UN and EU officials will meet on Thursday to hear financial pledges, with a total announced late afternoon. Around 55 countries and 80 delegations are expected to attend. As the conflict enters its ninth year, about 11.7 million Syrians still depend on aid. Almost as many have fled or been displaced inside the country. European countries have warned the money must not prop up Bashar Assad’s regime. The UN and EU -- jointly organizing the conference -- hope for a better return than at the last Brussels conference, in 2018, when pledges fell far short of expectations with $4.4 billion -- less than half of the $9.1 billion the UN said was needed. "There is a certain fatigue on the part of donors," a European official admitted on the eve of the conference, the third to be held in Brussels and the seventh such event since the conflict erupted in March 2011. "If there is no money, nothing can be done," he warned. The European Union and its member states accounted for three quarters of pledges last year but some big players -- including the United States -- did not announce how much they were donating. Several donors committed themselves over three years at the 2018 conference. France promised 1.1 billion euros for the period 2018 to 2020. Commitments for 2019 and 2020 totaled $3.4 billion. Assads claim his country is suffering an "economic siege" and his denunciation of sanctions imposed by the EU and the United States has cast a shadow over the conference. "There is no question of normalization with the Damascus regime, which some EU countries would be willing to do," a European diplomat said. "The fear is that international aid will be diverted... by the regime," the diplomat added. It is "fundamental" that aid be distributed to the approximately five million Syrians displaced within the country and that it should reach the countrys northeast, now freed from the ISIS terrorist group. Rania Malki, the chief executive of Save the Children in Jordan, told AFP that humanitarian organizations like hers were focused on making sure aid got through to those who need it. "Although this is sometimes a challenging and very chaotic operating environment, NGOs have a well-established procedure to help ensure donor funding is safeguarded from diversion by sanctioned entities," she told AFP. The EU has dropped its demand that Assad stand down as a precondition for help in reconstructing the country and is instead calling for a transition. "There can be no regime change overnight, but we expect signs of a credible political transition process, and reconstruction assistance can be a lever on the regime," European Neighborhood Policy Commissioner Johannes Hahn told AFP. But several countries are insisting on another condition -- bringing war crimes suspects to book. In 2018, seven countries -- Germany, France, United Kingdom, Sweden, Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium -- vowed that "not a single person responsible for the crimes committed in Syria will be able to escape justice".