The UN High Commissioner for Refugees called Friday on the European Union to admit up to 200,000 refugees as part of a “mass relocation program” that would be binding on EU states.
“People who are found to have a valid protection claim… must then benefit from a mass relocation program, with the mandatory participation of all EU member states,” Antonio Guterres said in a statement.
His call came ahead of a meeting later Friday of EU foreign ministers to discuss the continent’s refugee crisis, of which Syrian toddler Aylan Kurdi, whose lifeless body was found face down in the surf on a Turkish beach on Wednesday, has become a searing symbol.
Referring to the pictures of the dead child, which “had stirred the hearts of the world public,” Guterres said: “Europe cannot go on responding to this crisis with a piecemeal or incremental approach.”
“No country can do it alone, and no country can refuse to do its part,” he declared.
