A UN Humanitarian Adviser has called on richest countries to strengthen support for the poor states to prevent he failure of the existing refugee protection system.
The richest countries around the world need to boost support to the poor states, accepting refugees, to prevent the failure of the existing refugee protection system, Humanitarian Adviser to UN special envoy for Syria and Norwegian Refugee Council Secretary General Jan Egeland said.
“The system protecting refugees will collapse if we do not step up our support to countries like Uganda. The richest and most stable countries from Europe to the US do their uttermost to keep refugees away. At the same time, they are not adequately funding reception of refugees in poor host countries,” Egeland said as quoted by the Norwegian Refugee Council.
The adviser also called for more work on political settlement of crises, increased funding for humanitarian purposes and warned that the displacement figures would continue to rise in case the attempts to stabilize the counties in crises fail.
“About 2,000 people crossed the border from South Sudan into Uganda each day over the last twelve months. Borders must be kept open, but we cannot expect a country like Uganda to shoulder the entire bill,” Egeland specified.
Earlier in the day, the annual Global Trends study by UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) showed that 65.6 million people had been displace as of the end of 2016.