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UN agency urges countries to open door to refugees

Xinhua, June 18, 2015 Adjust font size:

The United Nations refugee agency on Thursday urged countries to open their doors to people fleeing their homes as the number of people displaced by wars around the world reaches a record level.

"My appeal is for all countries in the world and namely in Europe, in the Gulf and in other areas that are richer to have their doors opened," UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Antonio Guterres said during the launch of UNHCR Global Trends Report in Istanbul.

He urged the developed world to provide more legal venues for those in need of protection to be able to reach their territories.

The latest annual report showed a sharp surge in the number of people forced to flee their homes.

Some 60 million people were forcibly displaced at the end of 2014, up from 51 million in 2013 and 37 million a decade ago.

According to the report, Syria is now the world's biggest producer of both internally displaced people, which reached 7.6 million, and refugees fleeing to other countries, at more than 3.5 million.

Turkey hosts around 2 million Syrian refugees.

Gutteres also urged the developed economies to increase their financial support and humanitarian aid for countries like Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, which have long been suffering from massive influx of Syrian refugees.

"These countries need financial support because they are having a dramatic impact on their economies and on their society," he said.

Now in Lebanon, one third of the population is either Syrian or Palestinian, while Turkey has spent 6 billion U.S. dollars alone for Syrian refugees in four years.

"One can imagine the impact of that in their economies and in their societies," Gutterres said.

Amid the sharp growth in the number of refugees, the global distribution of refugees remains heavily skewed away from wealthier nations and toward the less wealthy ones, according to the report.

Almost nine out of every 10 refugees were in regions and countries considered economically less developed, the report said. Endit