UNHCR chief urges African leaders to sustain commitment towards solving forced displacement

UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres on Thursday urged African leaders to sustain their commitment towards solving the refugee and internally displaced persons crisis that is haunting the continent.

Guterres who was speaking at the opening of a two-day Special African Union Summit on Refugees, Returnees and Internally Displaced Persons here said that the humanitarian situation on the continent needs a political solution and not a humanitarian solution.

"We need your will, your courage and your leadership. We can not be and we are not indifferent from their fate. Africa's future depends upon meeting the challenge of forced displacement," he said.

He also said that though the number of refugees on the continent has gone down, the statistics of internal displacement were still high.

Guterres said a big number of displaced persons are now settling in the continent's burgeoning cities where they compete with poorer locals for limited economic opportunities and scarce services.

"People across Africa who have been uprooted by conflicts and calamity are looking to you, their leaders, to give them confidence and hope," he told the leaders who were here to adopt a Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa.

Africa hosts the largest number of refugees and internally displaced persons in the world, numbering about 17 million people. The majority of them are displaced by armed conflicts.

Source: Xinhua