With up to 2 million Iraqi refugees living in Syria and Jordan, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said Tuesday the UN will boost its aid programmes and increase financial assistance to refugee host countries, according to dpa. Antonio Guterres, the head of the Geneva-based UN refugee agency, said Syria and Jordan are facing increasing difficulties as they try to absorb refugees coming out of Iraq almost on a daily basis. UNHCR is also trying to help those displaced within Iraq because of sectarian violence that drives up to 50,000 Iraqis out of their homes every month. Some of the refugees belong to specific groups that face higher risks unless they receive separate resettlement when living outside of their own country, Guterres told a news conference at UN headquarters in New York, referring to the conflict between Shiites and Sunnis. "We have increased our own capacity to refer the Iraqis for resettlement overseas, 20,000 of them in 2007, and we hope that different resettlement countries will be able to accept them," Guterres said. --More
