UN Secretary-General calls on states to expand refugee resettlement program

By Azernews

By Gunay Hasanova

The United Nations says there are now 65.3 million people worldwide who have had to flee their homes to escape conflict, the most since records began and possibly since the end of the Second World War.

The world is facing a crisis of epic proportions. Hence, the refugee issue is one of the most important problems that the international community needs to pay attention.

U.S. hosted the first Leaders Summit on Refugees in New York City on September 20.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the governments to expand the program to accept refugees, as more than 1 million people in dire need resettlement, RIA Novosti reported.

“Low- and middle-income countries accept 90 percent of refugees from all around the world. It is noteworthy that only eight countries are taking more than half of refugees,” said Ban Ki-moon at the summit on refugees organized by the United States on the sidelines of UN General Assembly.

The Secretary General called the sharing of responsibility widely as one of the goals of the summit.

“Approximately 1.2 million vulnerable refugees need resettlement. More than 100,000 refugees were resettled in less than two dozen countries last year,” Ban Ki-moon added.

The UN Secretary General stressed that “more and more countries have to open resettlement programs”, as well as, there is a need to “increase funding for humanitarian programs”.

Earlier, the statement released by the participants of the summit on refugees, which is attended by the U.S., Germany, Canada, Sweden, Mexico, Jordan and Ethiopia, said that the international community managed to additional $4.5 billion aid for refugee programs from 32 countries in 2016.

In turn, the U.S. President said that participant countries of the UN summit on refugees will accept more than 360,000 refugees next year, doubling the number of slots that were available last year.

Countries could only attend Obama's summit at the annual UN gathering of world leaders if they made a pledge.

In addition, Turkish President Erdogan also commented on the issue on the sidelines of UN summit on refugees.

Reiterating that Turkey has done its share to help refugees by spending over 25 billion dollars, Erdogan criticized the UN and EU for not fulfilling their pledges on providing funds for refugees.

"Turkey has spent over $25 billion while the United Nation, the platform I am speaking now, only delivered $525 million. There was no support from the European Union and UNICEF only sent $178 million and that is it." Erdogan told the Assembly.

With a record 21.3 million refugees globally, the 193- member General Assembly adopted the New York Declaration on refugees and migrants, which prescribes to develop two global agreements on the settlement of migration problem and the fair sharing of responsibility regarding refugee acceptance by 2018.