Britain on Monday appointed a minister to deal specifically with the 20,000 Syrian refugees that the country has agreed to resettle over the next five years from camps bordering the war-torn country.

Britain on Monday appointed a minister to deal specifically with the 20,000 Syrian refugees that the country has agreed to resettle over the next five years from camps bordering the war-torn country.

"Richard Harrington will be responsible for coordinating and delivering work across government to resettle up to 20,000 Syrian refugees in the UK, along with coordinating the provision of government support to Syrian refugees in the region," said a statement from Prime Minister David Cameron's office.

Harrington will be an under-secretary -- the lowest rank of the three tiers of Britain's government.

The prime minister was on Monday visiting a refugee camp in Lebanon "to see for myself and to hear for myself stories of refugees and what they need.

"Britain is already the second largest donor to refugee camps to this whole crisis, really helping in a way that many other countries aren't with serious amounts of money," he said.

"We will go on doing that including increasing the amount of money we are giving to educate Syrian children here in Lebanon and elsewhere. I think that's absolutely vital."

The prime minister arrived in Beirut on Monday for a one-day visit, a Lebanese government source said.

Cameron was to visit a refugee camp in the Bekaa valley in eastern Lebanon, the source said. The country hosts more than 1.1 million Syrian refugees.

Nearly 12 million people have been displaced by the conflict, according to official estimates.