GENEVA — Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations called Wednesday for countries to accept about half a million Syrian refugees, criticizing political leaders who have responded to the migrant crisis by demonizing asylum seekers. ADVERTISING GENEVA — Secretary-General Ban
GENEVA — Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations called Wednesday for countries to accept about half a million Syrian refugees, criticizing political leaders who have responded to the migrant crisis by demonizing asylum seekers.
Ban, opening a one-day ministerial conference in Geneva convened by the U.N. refugee agency, called for “an exponential increase in global solidarity” and urged countries to accept about 480,000 Syrians over the next three years.
“Neighboring countries have done far more than their share,” Ban said, alluding to the nearly 5 million refugees taken in by Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq. “Others must now step up.”
More than 1 million migrants reached European shores last year, and the European Union has struggled to come up with a coherent and effective response to the huge influx of people fleeing conflict and persecution, most notably in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.
Attempts to criticize the new arrivals are “not only demeaning, offensive and counterproductive, they are factually wrong,” Ban said, emphasizing the skills and human resources they bring to host countries. “I call on leaders to counter fearmongering with reassurance, and to fight inaccurate information with the truth.”
The U.N. refugee agency said it had received over the past two years pledges to resettle 179,000 people, so the target would require places for about 300,000 more.
“We are here today to appeal for additional and more diverse legal avenues for admission of Syrian refugees into different countries,” Filippo Grandi, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, said at the meeting, using the occasion to highlight failings in the international response.
International donors meeting in London in February pledged $12 billion in humanitarian aid for Syrian refugees and the countries receiving them, but less than half the funds had been allocated so far, he said, calling for speedier disbursement.
Moreover, Grandi said, “much more is needed.”
European Union countries have not shown “the required solidarity” to share the resettlement of refugees, he said. “We cannot respond to a global refugee crisis by closing doors and building fences,” he added.
U.N. officials have cautiously refrained from setting any targets for resettlement pledges at the Geneva conference, a reflection of the political sensitivities surrounding the issue, and they have emphasized that the meeting is only the start of a process intended to recalibrate the international response to movements of refugees and migrants.
Ban pointed out that the Geneva meeting would be followed by the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul in May, a meeting on the refugee crisis at the General Assembly in New York in September, and a summit meeting that President Barack Obama is to convene in September on strengthening the global response to the refugee crisis.
The only durable solution to the Syrian refugee crisis, however, is a political solution to the conflict, Ban said.
“There is no alternative to negotiating a political transition that will lead to a new Syria,” he said.
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