ATLANTA — More resources are needed to help refugees fleeing from Syria, the head of an Atlanta-based international relief organization told the Atlanta Press Club this week.
“When I sat with families, they said ‘We literally don’t know how we’re going to make it through the winter,’” The Associated Press quoted Michelle Nunn,president and CEO of CARE, as saying. “We are going to have a continued European migration crisis if we don’t support people to rebuild their lives and create some hope in the places where they are living.”
It is estimated there are more than 4 million refugees from Syria, making it what many have called the world’s largest humanitarian crisis since World War II. The European Union has committed to taking in 120,000 refugees, and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has said 85,000 refugees will be allowed to enter the United States in 2016 and 100,000 in 2017.
However, Nunn called for 100,000 more refugees be allowed to relocate to the U.S. And, to help raise awareness, she said CARE would soon launch a social media campaign asking people what would they take with them if forced to flee from their homes.
“We need to lift up our voices. There must be a diplomatic and political solution in Syria in order to protect the lives of the citizens there,” Morris News Service quoted Nunn as saying.
“We are in support of other advocates in this goal of increasing our absorption rate and recognizing that it takes, on average, 18 months to go through the security screening if you are coming in from a place like Syria, and so there is a lot of intentionality around the security issue,” Nunn said, according to Morris News Service.
After an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate in 2014, Nunn joined CARE as its president and CEO, effective July 1.
