Six richest nations host just 9 percent of refugees
July 18, 2016.
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| [Reuters] |
Aid agency says “shameful” that richest countries are turning their backs on the most vulnerable people in the world.
– which make up more than half the global economy – host less than nine
percent of the world’s refugees, an aid group has said.
The United States, China, Japan, Germany, France and the United
Kingdom hosted 2.1 million refugees and asylum seekers last year – just
8.88 percent of the global total, the report from the Britain-based Oxfam said.
Poorer countries, in contrast, have accommodated most of those looking for save havens, Oxfam said.
“Jordan, Turkey, Pakistan, Lebanon, South Africa as well as the
Occupied Palestinian Territory host over 50 percent of the world’s
refugees and asylum seekers but account for under two percent of the
world’s economy,” it said.
“While Germany has recently welcomed far more refugees than the other
of the wealthiest nations, there still remains a major gap with poorer
countries providing the vast majority of safe havens for refugees.”
help to countries sheltering the majority of them – ahead of two major
summits about refugees and so-called economic migrants in the US in
September.
‘It is shameful’
“It is shameful so many governments are turning their backs on the
suffering of millions of vulnerable people who have fled their homes and
are often risking their lives to reach safety,” Winnie Byanyima, the
executive director of Oxfam, said.
“Poorer countries are shouldering the duty of protecting refugees
when it should be a shared responsibility, but many richer countries are
doing next to nothing.”
forced to flee their homes because of conflict, persecution and
violence, the report said.
More than a third of them are refugees and asylum seekers, Oxfam
said, and the remainder have had to move within their own countries.
end up living in degrading situations littered with abuse, hostility and
discrimination, and too few governments are doing anywhere near enough
to help or protect them,” Byanyima said.
