Some of the around 32,000 registered Rohingya refugees who recently fled from violence in Myanmar to the UNHCR-run camps in Ukhia, Cox's Bazar, waiting in a long food queue on March 5, 2017. 650,000 from South Sudan. Half a million Muslim Rohingya. These are the numbers that make up more than 2 million people who have joined the ranks of the world’s refugees this year. Unfortunately for them, according to the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) and to a new Amnesty International report, they face stricter asylum policies in Europe and the US than ever before.
In a move that scored as a dismal underscore to their announcements, only days later, German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed to limit Germany’s formerly liberal refugee intake to less than 200,000 a year.
Perhaps the biggest irony embodied in this global policy shift is the fact that it comes one year after 193 UN member states adopted the New York Declaration on Refugees and Migrants, which the UNHCR called a “game changer” at the time.
