The UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said on Saturday that the world waited far too long to respond to the refugee crisis sparked by the wars in Syria and elsewhere, though rich nations now appear to understand the scale of the problem.
“Unfortunately only when the poor enter the halls of the rich do the rich notice that the poor exist,” Guterres said in an interview on the sidelines of the annual gathering of world leaders at the UN General Assembly.
“Until we had this massive movement into Europe, there was no recognition in the developed world of how serious this crisis was,” he said. “If, in the past, we had more massive support to those countries in the developing world that have been receiving them and protecting them, this would not have happened.”
The sudden arrival in Europe of tens of thousands refugees from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, many abandoning refugee camps in Turkey, Jordan or Lebanon, has stirred sharp disagreement between EU members on how to “process” and accommodate them.
While governments such as Germany have proven more welcoming, eastern European countries have resisted plans for quotas to disperse refugees.
For years, Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan have struggled to cope with millions of refugees from Syria’s 4.5-year civil war.
“The refugees are living worse and worse,” Guterres said. “They’re not allowed to work, the overwhelming majority of them live below the poverty line. It’s more and more difficult for them to have any hope in the future.”
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
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Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
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