The head of the United Nations has called on wealthy countries to intensify and co-ordinate efforts to take in Syrian refugees and to halt attempts to "demonise" them, amid continuing uncertainty over an EU-Turkey plan to tackle the crisis.
"I ask that countries act with solidarity, in the name of our shared humanity, by pledging new and additional pathways for the admission of Syrian refugees," UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon told officials from more than 90 states gathered in Geneva yesterday.
“These pathways can include resettlement or humanitarian admission, family reunions, as well as labour or study opportunities,” he told the conference, which aims to secure places in safe countries over three years for 480,000 Syrian refugees.
Mr Ban said that figure – which equates to about 10 percent of all Syrian refugees – was "relatively small" compared to the numbers now being hosted by Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, which were not the focus of the Geneva event.
British charity Oxfam reported this week that the world's richest nations had taken in 67,100 refugees – just 1.39 percent of the total number who have been driven from Syria by a five-year war that has killed more than 250,000 people.
Amid rising anti-refugee sentiment in Europe and fear that an influx of Muslims will increase the threat of a terrorism, Mr Ban urged leaders to "counter fearmongering with reassurance, and to fight inaccurate information with the truth".
“Attempts to demonise [refugees] are not only offensive, they are factually incorrect,” he said.
Few countries at the conference were quick to make concrete commitments, but Sweden and Italy pledged to take in 1,500 and 3,000 more refugees annually respectively.
US deputy secretary of state Heather Higginbottom said Washington sought "to shorten the timeline for resettlement without compromising the robust security screening procedures in place".
Referring to a pledge already made by the White House, Ms Higginbottom added: "We have significantly increased the number of interviewing officials at our refugee processing centres in the region, so that we can resettle at least 10,000 Syrian refugees by the end of September."
Europe is hoping a controversial deal agreed by EU and Turkish leaders this month will ease its worst refugee crisis since the second World War.
The deal states that all migrants who reached Greece after March 20th and do not qualify for or do not seek asylum there will be returned to Turkey, which on a one-for-one exchange basis will send Syrians from its refugee camps to the EU.
In return for Ankara's assistance, the EU agreed to accelerate talks on Turkey's accession bid; to double refugee aid for Ankara to €6 billion; and to let Turks travel without visas to the EU's passport-free Schengen zone by June. Major rights and aid groups call the plan unethical and potentially illegal. The first migrants are due to be returned to Turkey next Monday, but it is still unclear how the process will work and whether Turkey is ready for them.
The town of Dikili, near Izmir on Turkey's Aegean coast, is expected to receive the first returnees from Greek islands, but Dikili's mayor Mustafa Tosun said yesterday: "We can't get information from the authorities . . . we only hear rumours," about how the returns will be handled.
More than 50,000 migrants are now in Greece, where officials said yesterday that arrivals were increasing again after a lull of several days.
