UNHCR chief Guterres stresses need to fight human trafficking, prote..
News Stories, 26 August 2015
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(c) UNHCR/A. Lechat
UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres (right) greets French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve (left).
GENEVA, Aug 26 (UNHCR) - The UN refugee agency head Antonio Guterres on Wednesday reiterated the need to protect refugees fleeing to Europe by ensuring they are protected from human traffickers and that a properly functioning system is created to allow them to apply for asylum legally.
At a joint press conference with French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve in Geneva, he said such a system would help replace the currently "dysfunctional" approach within the European Union to the handling of the influx of refugees to Europe.
"If we fight traffickers, protect victims and put in place a system to allow refugees to apply for asylum legally, we will succeed (in handling the crisis)," he said.
However, he added that the EU needed to "accelerate and intensify" efforts to resolve the crisis.
Cazeneuze added that it was necessary to have a humanitarian solution to the situation in Calais, northern France, where chaotic scenes have accompanied efforts by refugees and migrants to reach the United Kingdom. He called for an EU reception centre where people could be processed properly
in decent conditions and their claims evaluated in the correct manner and way.
He stressed that France and Germany were committed to handling the current influx of refugees in a manner in keeping with their international obligations while fully respecting values such as responsibility and solidarity which lay at the heart of the creation of the European Union.
Guterres said funding for efforts to help Syrian refugees in the countries of first asylum, such as Lebanon and Turkey, was well below target, at some 41 per cent of current projected needs and called for an examination of new ways of financing the current situation as all humanitarian
organisations were facing a shortfall.
By Jonathan Clayton