25/01/2021 (Agence Europe) – The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) called, Monday 25 January, on the international community, including European Union countries, to increase the number of resettlement places on their territory for refugees. Some 1.44 million refugees worldwide are in urgent need of resettlement, according to a statement. But only 22,770 of them were resettled in 2020. “This is the lowest number of resettlements in nearly two decades, due to the limited quotas that have been proposed by states and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic that has delayed departures and programmes”, the UNHCR said. It hopes that “the year 2020 will remain a historic anomaly in terms of refugee resettlement”. The majority of refugees resettled worldwide in 2020 were from Syria, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burma. (SP)