More than 68.5 million displaced worldwide: UN official

TRIPOLI, June 20, (Xinhua/GNA) – The number of
displaced people around the world has increased to 68.5 million, the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said on Tuesday.

“The number of displaced people is
alarming and not good. The number has reached 68.5 million around the world
because of the intensification of conflicts, violence and wars, constantly
forcing people out of their troubled countries,” Grandi told a press conference
in the Libyan capital of Tripoli after a two-day visit to inspect immigrants
reception centers and camps in Tripoli.

The UN official pointed out that 58 percent of
the displaced are from poor and developing countries, adding that the number of
migrants reaching Europe during the first half of this year has decreased.

“Countries that host the largest number
of refugees, especially those that do not have adequate resources to shoulder
the costs of hosting them, should get help and cooperation in sharing the
burden under joint international efforts,” he said, adding that closing
borders and ports is “not a solution to the risk of rising immigration
flows.”

The Italian authorities closed its ports
earlier in June, and refused to receive a ship belonging to an international
organization with 600 immigrants on board, who were rescued in the
Mediterranean.  Spain agreed to receive
these immigrants after intensive international contacts.

The refusal of Italy to receive the immigrants
from Libya for the first time is seen by observers as an indication of the
beginning of Rome’s abandonment of its international commitments to receive
immigrants, due to its inability to absorb the large number of migrants coming
every year through the Mediterranean.

Grandi said earlier on Tuesday that
international pledges to resettle 25,000 illegal migrants from Libya are
“moving slowly.”

Libya is a preferred point of departure for
illegal immigrants crossing the Mediterranean towards Europe.

Immigration reception centers in Libya are
overcrowded with tens of thousands of illegal immigrants, few of whom have a
chance to resettle in a third country.

Most of them are voluntarily repatriated by
the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

In 2017, IOM repatriated 20,000 immigrants
voluntarily from Libya to their countries of origin.

GNA

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