UN-REFUGEES/GUTERRES UN: Syrian refugees face winter in camps hit by budget shortfall

Record ID: 275408

  • Title: UN-REFUGEES/GUTERRES UN: Syrian refugees face winter in camps hit by budget shortfall
  • Date: 17th November 2014
  • Summary: WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES (NOVEMBER 17, 2014) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) U.N. HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES ANTONIO GUTERRES, SAYING: "Hope never dies, and I think it's our duty and the duty of the international community to do everything to convince the Myanmar's problem that, as I said, that a democratic transition cannot exclude one million people."
  • Embargoed: 2nd December 2014 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Myanmar
  • Country: Myanmar
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA1RPLIDPKAVWGEMQU9IU5QYGUE
  • Story Text: Refugees fleeing violence in Syria and Iraq face winter's onset amid a budget shortfall of $58 million to prepare people for winter, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said on Monday (November 17).
    "Winter in that area has snow, has lots of rain, and has negative temperatures, so it is obviously a challenge to make sure that people can survive and can have a minimum of comforts in those terrible circumstances, and we are still, as I said, as of yesterday, lacking $58 million just for that project," Guterres said during an interview in Washington.
    About 13.9 million people, equivalent to the population of London, have been displaced by conflicts in Syria and Iraq, and many are without food or shelter as winter starts, the U.N. said on Monday.
    The 13.9 million include 7.6 million displaced within Syria - an increase from a long-held U.N. estimate of 6.5 million - as well as 3.3 million Syrian refugees abroad.
    In Iraq, 1.9 million have been displaced this year by tribal fighting and the advance of Islamic State, adding to 1 million previously displaced, and moer than 190,000 have left the country to seek safety.
    Fulfilling refugees' basic needs is essential to avoid people from being radicalized and joining the ranks of the very fighters they had fled from, Guterres said.
    "Desperate people are always more fragile in their capacity to resist to pressures or to those who try to initiate them for all kinds of desperate actions. So from the point of view of preserving as much as possible the stability in the region, it is as I said vital to support displaced populations and to support the communities hosting them," he said.
    U.N. figures show that leading donors include the European Union, United States, Japan, Norway and some Gulf Arab countries. The data show Russia and China have each provided just 0.1 percent of the total humanitarian funding raised by donors this year for Syria.
    The vast majority of Syrian refugees have gone to Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq or Turkey, countries that could be approaching "host-country fatigue" because of huge demand from refugees for housing, schools, jobs and healthcar and scant resources like water.
    Guterres pointed to Lebanon - where one in four residents is now a refugee - as an example of how host countries need help to cope with the mass migration of refugees.
    "If you want these countries to be able to go on accepting refugees, it is essential to mobilize a massive international solidarity with them that unfortunately has been very far from the levels that would be required," he said.
    The number of refugees, asylum seekers and internally displaced people worldwide exceeded 50 million for the first time since World War II, according to the UN. Guterres said he is frustrated by the inability of the international community to find political solutions to conflicts.
    "The solution for this dramatic humanitarian problem is not humanitarian. The solution is political, but it requires a leadership capacity and a prevention and response capacity from the political perspective of the international community that unfortunately is not there," he said.
    Countries should also be accepting of their own populations, Guterres said, when asked about Myanmar's 1.1 million ethnic Rohingya Muslims, who are stateless and live in apartheid-like conditions in Rakhine state in the west of the predominantly Buddhist country.
    "Hope never dies, and I think it's our duty and the duty of the international community to do everything to convince the Myanmar's problem that, as I said, that a democratic transition cannot exclude one million people," he said.
    U.S. President Barack Obama called on Friday (November 14) for Myanmar to end discrimination against Rohingya people, urging in his strongest comments on the persecuted Muslim minority that the government grant them equal rights.
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