...That's enough to aggravate pre-existing xenophobia and apartheid in
Australia.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/small-numbers-of-refugees-in-australia-un-20130619-2oisu.html
Small numbers of refugees in Australia: UN
June 19, 2013 - 4:50PM
Australia hosted just 0.3 per cent of the world's refugees by the end of the
2012, the United Nation says.
Of the 88,600 refugees resettled around the world in last year, Australia
took 5900 while the United States resettled the most refugees by far at
66,300, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) report said.
Out of 9.9 million registered refugees worldwide, only 30,000 were in
Australia, or 0.3 per cent, while Pakistan hosted 1.6 million people, or 17
per cent of the global total.
Australia's UNHCR representative Richard Towle says about 23,000 people were
forced to flee their homes every day last year, which is more than the total
number seeking asylum in Australia in the whole of 2012.
"This reminds us that the number of refugees and asylum seekers in Australia
remains relatively small by global standards," he said in a statement on
Wednesday.
More than 12,000 people have arrived by boat this year.
But the report shows the overwhelming majority of displaced people turned to
developing countries, which hosted more than 80 per cent of the world's
refugees.
Pakistan and Iran accounted for a quarter.
"It's difficult for them to look after their own community let alone help
out millions of people over their borders and yet they do it," Mr Towle
said.
Meanwhile, almost 650,000 refugees fled Syria's civil war in 2012 - the
largest exodus of people in a year since the Kosovo war.
That number has now soared to around 1.6 million, surpassing last year's
total from all conflicts.
And without a resolution to the conflict soon, Mr Towle warns that number
could double by the end of the year.
The UNHCR data showed an extra 7.6 million people were displaced globally in
2012, including 1.1 million new refugees, mainly due to conflicts or
persecution.
By the end of 2012, there were 45.2 million forcibly displaced people
worldwide, of which 15.4 million were refugees.
AAP