Syria Today | UN High Commissioner for Refugees marks World Refugee Day in Damascus

UN High Commissioner for Refugees marks World Refugee Day in Damascus

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres commemorated World Refugee Day in Damascus on June 20.

In a speech delivered at UNHCR Syria's headquarters in Kafer Suseh, the agency's chief said he chose to spend the occasion in Syria to "pay tribute to the extreme generosity and hospitality of the Syrian government and Syrian people for the protection of refugees".

During the press conference he also called Syria the "historic capital of refugee protection" for its role in safeguarding Iraqi and Palestinian exiles.

Guterres criticised Western nations, as well as some Arab states, that expel Iraqi asylum seekers or refuse them entry, and contrasted these actions with Syria's "open door policy".

"Syria has been hosting a large number of Iraqis with a huge impact on the economy and society, paying a heavy price for its generosity," he said. "It is doing so without harassing them, without pushing them back and this is an example that should be followed everywhere… Unfortunately some countries are trying to force Iraqis back to Baghdad."

UNHCR also announced last month that the number of Iraqi refugees formally registered with the agency had fallen by a quarter to 165,493 at the end of April. It deregistered 58,000 refugees, assuming those who had not contacted the office in four months or picked up food vouchers in two months had returned to Iraq, departed for other countries or died.

The June 20 press conference was part of the high commissioner's three-day visit to Syria which coincided with World Refugee Week. On June 18 Guterres visited Hassakeh governorate in north-eastern Syria. Through a live satellite connection, he discussed publicly the plight of refugees with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington DC, UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador and Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie in northern Ecuador and UNHCR staffer Jorge Holly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Iraqi refugees in Syria welcomed the international recognition.

"We live in limbo; we cannot live in Syria forever so we must either return to Iraq or go to a third country in Europe or America," Haidar Ibrahim, a 45-year-old Iraqi refugee who arrived in Damascus five years ago, said. "I hope and dream that [Guterres's visit] will give Iraqis in Syria more attention from the world."