Wealthy countries took in less than 5 per cent of the 1.2 million refugees that the United Nations wanted to transfer permanently from poorer host countries in 2018, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said on Tuesday.

UNHCR spokeswoman Shabia Mantoo said in Geneva that less than 56,000 refugees were able to take part in the UN resettlement programme in 2018.

Mantoo added that this figure and the 5-per-cent rate were lower than in the previous three years.

“Among the world’s total of around 20 million refugees, the UNHCR identifies those who are especially vulnerable because they are children or because they suffered violence, torture or illness, and asks developed countries to take them in.

“Resettlement remains a life-saving tool to ensure the protection of those most at risk,’’ Mantoo said, calling on governments and communities across the world to share responsibility for responding to forced displacement crises.

The UNHCR is currently developing a three-year plan to raise resettlement numbers, and to widen the number of wealthy countries that take part in the programme.

The U.S. accepted the most refugees for permanent resettlement in 2018 with 17,000 cases, followed by Canada with 7,700, Britain with 5,700 and France and Sweden with around 5,000 each.

Tuesday’s numbers do not include people who directly applied for refugee status in wealthy countries and were granted protection.

Over one third of the people who were transferred under the UN programme were Syrians, with regional host countries Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan as the main points of departure.

A quarter of the resettled refugees were people who had fled violence in Congo. (dpa/NAN)

– Feb. 19, 2019 @ 03:00 GMT |