(Reuters) – The United Nations refugee agency has welcomed the response by advanced countries to the Ukrainian refugee disaster and urged them to act in an identical approach in direction of refugees from different battle zones, no matter nationality, race or faith.
The variety of folks fleeing Ukraine since Russia invaded on Feb. 24 has climbed to greater than 3 million in what has turn out to be Europe’s quickest rising refugee disaster since World War Two.
The overwhelming majority have been welcomed with help and the potential for short-term residency and entry to employment into countries bordering Ukraine, with a big quantity beginning to transfer additional west.
Some human rights teams and Arab refugees have contrasted the Western response to the best way Europe sought to maintain again Syrian and different refugees in 2015. Around 12 million Syrians have been uprooted by battle.
The U.N. refugee agency informed Reuters it was “deeply involved by rising xenophobia, discrimination and exclusion” in opposition to refugees and asylum seekers in current years and felt the Ukraine refugee disaster supplied a chance to mirror.
“We welcome this large reception and solidarity exhibited in direction of refugees in current days and hope this would possibly encourage some reflection and a shift from a number of the poisonous narratives and insurance policies we’ve got seen in numerous contexts,” mentioned Kathryn Mahoney, a spokesperson for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
“UNHCR continues to advocate for entry to protection for all of those that search it, together with these from Syria, Yemen, Ethiopia and different countries and areas, primarily based on the worldwide obligations of asylum countries to defend refugees.”
The agency is advocating for entry to asylum for all refugees, she added in an interview this week.
She mentioned the agency was in discussions with countries together with Britain, the United States and in Europe over their refugee insurance policies.
“For instance, we’ve got repeatedly referred to as for an finish to the apply of ‘pushbacks’ – stopping refugees from getting into the territory of a specific nation,” Mahoney mentioned.
The European Union has mentioned it is going to grant Ukrainian refugees the suitable to keep and work in the bloc for up to three years.
Judith Sunderland, affiliate director for advocacy group Human Rights Watch’s Europe and Central Asia division, mentioned refugee insurance policies in direction of Ukrainians “stand in stark distinction to the insurance policies and practices that we proceed to see with respect to migrants and refugees from different elements of the world, most of them brown and Black.”
Mahoney mentioned the U.N. refugee agency welcomed the EU’s transfer, including that there was an pressing need for states to reply equally to different “critical” and “unresolved” displacement conditions attributable to humanitarian crises in Afghanistan, Syria and Ethiopia, amongst others.
“For these asylum-seekers who should not coated by its scope, it’s essential that EU Member States and different asylum countries proceed to admit them to their territory, assess particular person claims and grant worldwide protection the place it’s wanted,” she mentioned.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; enhancing by Stephanie Nebehay, Michael Shields and Rosalba O’Brien)
