On the occasion of World Refugees Day, the Regional Representative for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Egypt, Elizabeth Tan, said that the commission recorded some 185,000 refugees in Egypt by the end of May 2015, including 131,000 Syrians, with the rest from the Horn of Africa, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan. She said the real figure may be more, as many refugees refuse to report themselves to the UNHCR office.
Tan said the Egyptian government, the UNHCR and other United Nations agencies and non-governmental organisations work together to protect refugees with health, food and financial assistance, as well as psychological, social and legal support.
The (UNHCR) office in Egypt receives between 700 and 1,000 daily requests submitted by Syrian refugees to renew their residencies in order to be eligible for the UN’s aid.
according to Tan, there are more than 50 million people forcibly displaced worldwide, including 13 million refugees under the UNHCR mandate. The five-year-long Syrian crisis, one of the biggest crises in the 21st century, has strongly contributed to the swelling number of refugees. Over the past three years, the number of Syrian refugees exceeded 3 million while 6.5 million others have been displaced within Syria, according to a statement by the UNHCR in August 2014.
The total amount of financial aid for Syrian Refugees in Egypt has reached some US$31.2 million in 2014.
“There are no signs this crisis will end any time soon,” Tan said.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was established on 14 December 1950 by the United Nations General Assembly. The agency is mandated to lead and co-ordinate international action to protect refugees and resolve refugee problems worldwide. Its primary purpose is to safeguard the rights and well-being of refugees.
Watani International
17 June 2015