"We like you", Portuguese president tells refugees amid world record displacement

Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa visited Portugal's Council for Refugees (CPR) on Monday to mark World Refugee Day and said the Portuguese were united in receiving asylum-seekers.

"We are all united in Portugal. Portugal thinks and feels under the same voice. We are together, and the Portuguese are also with us," Rebelo de Sousa said before dozens of refugees at the center in Bobadela, Loures, around 13 km from Lisbon.

"There is not a place in the country where we do not agree. We like you, we know that you like us, and we are going to build a future with more peace and justice between people," he said.

Rebelo de Sousa also said there had been no problems in regards to the arrival of refugees in Portugal.

"On Portugal's behalf nothing has gone wrong because we are willing to receive refugees and we are going to receive more, and the number will duplicate in the next months," he said.

When questioned about refugees that had gone missing, he said: "In some cases they (refugees) are in movement in Portugal, we are welcoming them but we don't control them, this is not a police state."

"So there might be families that are not found but these are isolated cases," he said.

Portugal has received around 370 refugees under the EU relocation program, and Rui Marques, from the Platform for Support to Refugees (PAR) told local media on Monday that the relocation program is finally beginning to work after failing for several months.

The Lisbon council on Monday organised several activities to mark World Refugee Day, including a conference attended by the president. Cinema sessions about refugees will also take place this evening by the river Tejo at Lisbon's Ribeira das Naus.

The number of people displaced worldwide hit 65.3 million at the end of 2015, according to the UN. Endit