UN wants to resettle 10 percent of the world's refugees

A new UN plan to tackle the worst refugee crisis since World War II would aim to resettle at least 10 percent of refugees annually, piling pressure on countries to open up their doors to those fleeing wars and disasters.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon outlined the proposal for a new "global compact on responsibility-sharing" today to address the crisis from the 60 million refugees and displaced people worldwide.
The United Nations hopes that new deal will lift some of the burden on developing countries in the refugee crisis, which has been fueled by the five-year war in Syria and other conflicts.

The proposal calls for resettling at least 10 percent of the global refugee population of 19.6 million annually under a scheme that would be negotiated at the United Nations.
"With equitable responsiblity sharing, there would be no crisis for host countries," Ban said.
"We can afford to help, and we know what we need to do," but too often fear, ignorance and xenophobia get in the way, he said.

The UN plan was put forward as the European Union has been bogged down in disputes over how to deal with its refugee crisis.
An EU deal with Turkey, which has agreed to take back migrants in exchange for a string of concessions, has run into hurdles and the bloc has been haggling over how to share out the burden of resettlements.

More than 184,000 migrants have arrived in Europe by sea already this year, up from nearly 49,000 for the same four-month period last year as the refugee crisis rages on.
The global compact on refugees is expected to be adopted at a UN summit on September 19, that will be followed on September 20 by a US pledging conference.
President Barack Obama will host that conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting to ask countries to come forward and announce the number of refugees they are willing to take in along with any other support they can offer.