US President Barack Obama has announced a pledge by 50 nations to take in three lakh 60 thousand refugees from war-torn countries this year. “That the end of the Cold War lifted the shadow of nuclear Armageddon.that China and India remain on a path of remarkable growth”, Obama said in his final address to the UN General Assembly here.
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“We can not avert our eyes or turn our backs”. Seven EU states are set to admit at least 10 times more migrants than previous year.
But Ambassador Samantha Power said that was “still only a fraction” of what was needed because the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, has assessed that some 1.2 million refugees need to be resettled.
Power said there were also pledges to increase the number of refugees in schools by some 1 million globally.
Now in its sixth year, the war in Syria has killed more than 300,000 people and forced millions from their homes.
“Today a nation ringed by walls would only imprison itself”, Mr. Obama said.
Obama told the summit that the refugee crisis was “a test of our global system where all nations ought to share in our collective responsibilities, because the vast majority of refugees are hosted by just 10 countries”.
Trump has controversially proposed building a wall on the USA border with Mexico to keep out undocumented migrants.
But he said nations that have more money and better geographic locations can do more. “We must finally get ahead in tackling this crisis”, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said.
Calling on leaders to open their hearts, Obama stressed that it was only through co-operation that the world’s greatest challenges could be addressed.
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Six of the world’s richest countries – the United States, China, Japan, Britain, Germany and France – hosted only 1.8 million refugees a year ago, just 7% of the world total, according to research by the British charity Oxfam.
