UNHCR: Assistance to refugees and displaced people stretched to the limit
This report from Patrick Maigua, United Nations Radio, Geneva.
UNHCR: Assistance to refugees and displaced people stretched to the limit
More people have been forced to flee from their homes this year than at any other time in nearly two decades, stretching the available financial and material resources to the limit, according to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR).
The agency says this year alone over 1.5 million Syrian refugees have left their country while hundreds of thousands have been uprooted from their homes in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Mali and Somalia.
Speaking in Geneva at the opening of the annual UNHCR Executive Committee meeting, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said the Syrian refugee crisis was unparalleled but efforts to provide adequate humanitarian assistance were being held back by lack of financial support.
Mr Guterres commended the generosity of countries and communities hosting refugees but said the international community must do more to share the burden and help especially developing countries who now host more than 80 per cent of the world's total refugee population.
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