UN chief demands global action on Syrian refugees

UN chief Ban Ki-moon yesterday called for greater global efforts to tackle the Syrian refugee crisis, as he opened a conference on securing resettlement places for nearly half a million of those displaced by the five-year conflict.

"We are here to address the biggest refugee and displacement crisis of our time," Ban told the conference in Geneva. "This demands an exponential increase in global solidarity."

The UN secretary general, a South Korean, recalled his own experience of fleeing his village with his family as a six-year-old during the Korean War sixty years ago and said that for him stories of refugees stranded in camps with meagre resources "have personal meaning."

"Attempts to demonise people fleeing conflict are not only demeaning, offensive and counter-productive, they are factually wrong," Ban told journalists after his speech, in an apparent reference to rising anti-migrant rhetoric voiced by some political leaders across the developed world, reports AFP.

The Geneva meet follows a conference in London in February where nations pledged $11 billion (9.7 billion euros) to help manage one of the largest displacements of people since World War II.

Meanwhile, arrivals of refugees and migrants to Greece from Turkey rose sharply yesterday, just over a week since the European Union and Turkey struck a deal intended to cut off the flow.

Greek authorities recorded 766 new arrivals between Tuesday morning and yesterday morning, up from 192 the previous day. Most arrived on the northeastern Aegean island of Lesbos, reports Reuters.

Italy reported an even larger jump in arrivals on Tuesday, when officials there said 1,350 people - mostly from Africa - were rescued from small boats taking the longer migration route over the Mediterranean as the weather warmed up.

The EU Commission said on Tuesday that the flows in the last week had reduced, with only 1,000 people arriving from Turkey on Greek islands, compared to an average of 2,000 a day in the last couple of months.