Merkel Says Refugees 'Central Global Question'

Young exile Tibetan Buddhist monks read a picture storybook at the Namgyal Monastery School in Dharmsala, India, Wednesday, June 20, 2018. The Dalai Lama and his followers have been living in exile in the Himalayan town of Dharamsala in northern India since they fled Tibet after a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule. Wednesday marks World Refugee Day. (AP Photo/Ashwini Bhatia)

PARIS (AP) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel says that the number of refugees worldwide is “simply unthinkable” and that people fleeing is “a central global question of our time.”

The U.N. refugee agency reported Tuesday that nearly 69 million people fleeing war, violence and persecution were forcibly displaced last year, a record for the fifth straight year.

Merkel said Wednesday in Berlin that Germany stands by both its obligation to protect people fleeing war and terrorism and its commitment to keeping Europe together. The European Union has been deeply divided over how to respond to migration, and the chancellor herself faces calls from within her government to turn back some migrants unilaterally at the border.

Merkel said: “However you cut it, migration is a European challenge — perhaps our greatest challenge at the moment.”

Categories / Civil Rights, Government, International, Politics

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