The United Nations urged the
European Union to put human lives and human dignity first in its
emergency summit on the plight of migrants Thursday.
"We forcefully call on European leaders to put human life,
rights and dignity first when they are called on to (come up
with) a joint response to the humanitarian crisis in the
Mediterranean," the UN said in a statement.
It called for "a robust, proactive and adequately funded
rescue operation...the creation of adequate safe migration
channels...and a commitment to host significantly higher numbers
of refugees".
The EU must move beyond "the current minimalist approach" -
which consists mostly of "limiting the arrival of migrants and
refugees" - and come up with a new one based on
"the...protection and human rights of all migrants and
refugees," the UN said.
It added the EU must consider "strengthening support for
those countries hosting the largest numbers of arrivals -
Greece, Italy, and Malta - distributing the responsibility for
saving human lives and protecting those in distress, and
combating racist and xenophobic rhetoric, whose only purpose is
to denigrate migrants and refugees".
The statement was signed by the UN High Commissioner for
Refugees Antonio Guterres, High Commissioner for Human Rights
Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, the Secretary-General's Special
Representative on Migrations Peter Sutherland, and International
Organization for Migration (IOM) Director-General William Lacy
Swing.
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