(UNCHR Photo)
Ten countries accounting for a meager 2.5 percent of world GDP are hosting 56 percent of the world’s refugees, with Jordan and Turkey on top of the list, Amnesty International said on Tuesday.
A report by Agence France Presse quoted the London-based group as saying it is unfortunate that many of the world’s wealthiest nations “host the fewest and do the least.”
“A small number of countries have been left to do far too much just because they are neighbors to a crisis,” said Amnesty secretary-general Salil Shetty, presenting the report entitled “Tackling the global refugee crisis: from shirking to sharing responsibility.”
Amnesty said the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has placed the number of world’s refugees at 21 million.
Jordan is the top refugee hosting country, taking in more than 2.7 million people, followed by Turkey (more than 2.5 million); Pakistan (1.6 million) and Lebanon (more than 1.5 million).
The remaining six nations listed in the top 10 each hosted hundreds of thousands of refugees: Iran (979,400); Ethiopia (736,100); Kenya (553,900); Uganda (477,200); Democratic Republic of Congo (383,100), and Chad (369,500).
“That situation is inherently unsustainable, exposing the millions fleeing war and persecution in countries like Syria, South Sudan, Afghanistan, and Iraq to intolerable misery and suffering.
“It is time for leaders to enter into a serious, constructive debate about how our societies are going to help people forced to leave their homes by war and persecution.”
“It is not simply a matter of sending aid money. Rich countries cannot pay to keep people ‘over there’,” it said.
The “self-interest” of such countries meant the international refugee crisis was set to get worse, not better, Amnesty claimed.
“If every one of the wealthiest countries in the world were to take in refugees in proportion to their size, wealth and unemployment rate, finding a home for more of the world’s refugees would be an eminently solvable challenge,” said Shetty.
London, United Kingdom | AFP |
