Canada pledges to resettle 10,000 Syrian refugees over three years
MONTREAL, Canada - Canada has agreed to resettle 10,000 Syrian and 3,000 Iraqi refugees over the next three years in response to a United Nations appeal for help, the country's immigration minister said on Wednesday.
The announcement came on the heels of a UN refugee agency (UNHCR) report stating that Syrians had surpassed Afghans as the largest refugee population under its mandate. "Syrian refugees now account for 23 percent of all refugees being helped by UNHCR worldwide," the group said.
"Syrians and Iraqis face the worst forms of violence in the world today," said Canadian Immigration Minister Chris Alexander, pointing to the Islamic State group's "murderous rampage across Syria and Iraq and [its] systematic killing of anyone who does not adhere to their distorted version of Islam".
Since 2009, Canada has welcomed 20,000 Iraqi refugees into the country, and more than 1,000 Syrian refugees, according to AFP news agency.
"We are here today as we have been saying for some time to confirm that Canada is doing more," Alexander said during the announcement.
The UN recently put out a widespread call for more action to help the nearly 3.8 million Syrian refugees worldwide, including 3.2 million currently residing in neighbouring states, namely Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt.
On 9 December, foreign states pledged to resettle more than 100,000 Syrian refugees by the end of 2016, including 62,000 slots already set aside by various governments.
At the time, Canada was not among the countries that promised to bring in more refugees. Instead, reports surfaced that Ottawa would prioritise the resettlement of Syrian refugees belonging to religious minorities, a move that drew the ire of human rights groups.
Before Wednesday's announcement, Canada had pledged only 200 slots for government resettlement of Syrian refugees, and 1,100 places for private sponsorship.
Opposition party MPs have criticised the government for its slow response to the refugee crisis, while rights groups and journalists have called for Ottawa to do more.
“The Harper government’s foot-dragging raises the question of whether it has been so rattled by radical Sunni jihadism that it fears to offer shelter to desperate Sunni moms and toddlers who are among its victims. Do they not deserve the same protection?” the Toronto Star wrote in an editorial in December.
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