U.N. High Comissioner for Refugees António Guterres Says Agency Is Struggling To Meet Humanitarian Needs As Number Of Displaced Persons Increases to 60 million In The Past Decade

When António Guterres assumed his post as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 2005, there was a recorded number of 38 million people displaced by conflict and persecution worldwide. At that time, the number was decrease. However, 10 years later, the world is looking at a tally of 60 million displaced persons and counting.

Speaking to the U.N. refugee agency's Executive Committee on Oct. 5, Guterres gave emphasis to the importance of upholding the 1951 Refugee Convention and how that a common front between the Western and Muslim worlds is essential in resolving the global refugee crisis.

Guterres revealed 15 conflicts have erupted in the last five years, adding to the number of old and unresolved conflicts.

"The number of people globally displaced by conflict every single day has nearly quadrupled in that time - from almost 11,000 in 2010 to 42,500 last year," Guterres said.

The interlinked conflicts in Iraq and Syria has displaced 15 million people. In the last 12 months, 500,000 people fled their homes in South Sudan while Yemen saw the displacement of 1.1 million people. In Central America, tens of thousands are fleeing due to gang violence. Moreover, there's been little to no improvement in the refugee crises in Nigeria, Central African Republic, Ukraine and Congo.

As a result, there are now more than 60 million refugees, asylum-seekers, and internally displaced persons worldwide. Two-thirds of them are Muslim, writes CBS News Monday.

Guterres in his speech called for "a more universal humanitarian partnership moving beyond the essentially Western creation that is the present multilateral system."

"There is a critical urgency to both counter Islamaphobia and to reduce the appeal of extremist ideologies for younger generations," Guterres said, stressing that the world must eliminate its "backward narrowness of xenophobia".

With the massive increase in the number of displaced people, Guterres admits humanitarian agencies are finding it difficult to cope due to financial constraints.

"We are no longer able to meet even the absolute minimum requirements of core protection and lifesaving assistance to preserve the human dignity of the people we care for.

"The current funding level for the 33 UN appeals to provide humanitarian assistance to 82 million people around the world is only 42%. UNHCR expects to receive just 47% of the funding we need this year. We have managed to avoid meaningful reductions of our direct support to refugee families, but at a high cost to our other activities," the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees said.

In response to the crisis, the UNHCR fielded over 600 emergency response deployment missions in 2014. Among the agency's priority is the protection of children, especially since the number of unaccompanied children is rising to newer heights.

With this, Guterres appeals for states and international bodies to rethink how it finances measures to respond to humanitarian problems. He also asked countries to help conflict zones near them where a number of people are fleeing.

Guterres said, "The current refugee crisis has also shown, more clearly than anything else, how crucial it is to uphold the principles of international protection and to preserve the High Commissioner's firmly established legal mandate to intervene with governments on behalf of refugees and other persons of concern to UNHCR. Let us not forget that the duty entrusted to us is to protect non-citizens who, sadly and all too often, are considered not desirable in the places to which they flee."