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UN urges states to save boat people as record numbers take to seas - TRFN
GENEVA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Governments must focus on saving lives rather than keeping foreigners out at a time when more people than ever are embarking on risky sea crossings in search of asylum or a better life, the United Nations' refugee agency said on Wednesday.
UNHCR said at least 384,000 people, including a growing number of asylum seekers, had taken to the seas since the beginning of the year.
The bulk of the arrivals has been in Europe where more than 207,000 people have crossed the Mediterranean since the start of January - about three times the previous high of about 70,000 in 2011 during the Libyan civil war.
Despite the increase, the international community's response has been marred by confusion over to how to tackle the problem. Some governments are more concerned about keeping people out than treating them as individuals who may be fleeing war or persecution, UNHCR said.
"This is a mistake, and precisely the wrong reaction for an era in which record numbers of people are fleeing wars," the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, said in a statement. ...
Antonio Guterres, like the Pope, Obama and Merkel, is one of the top ten enemies of Western civilization.
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