Tag Archives: Migrant Crisis

Merkel under pressure as Cologne police detail assaults

BERLIN (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel faced growing pressure to harden her line on refugees on Monday as the first extensive police report on New Year’s Eve violence in Cologne documented rampant sexual assaults on women by gangs of young migrant men.

Cologne police said at least 11 foreigners, including Pakistanis, Guineans and Syrians, had been injured on Sunday evening in attacks by hooligans bent on revenge for the assaults in the western city.

Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere condemned those attacks and warned against a broader backlash against refugees following the events in Cologne, which have deepened scepticism towards Merkel’s policy of welcoming migrants.

The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party seized on the latest developments to attack the chancellor while members of her own conservative party warned that integrating the hundreds of thousands of migrants who arrived last year would fail if the influx were not stopped immediately.

“If the influx continues as it has, then integration can’t work,” said Carsten Linnemann, a lawmaker in Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU). “If we get another 800,000 or a million people arriving this year, then we won’t be able to do this,” he added, playing on Merkel’s optimistic “we can do this” mantra.

Speaking on Monday evening, Merkel said Europe was “vulnerable” because it was not yet in control of the situation as it would like to be.

In the eastern city of Leipzig, well over 2,000 anti-Muslim LEGIDA protestors took to the streets, their ranks swelled by anger over the Cologne attacks. They yelled “Merkel needs to go!” and one carried a sign featuring Merkel wearing a hijab and the words: ‘Merkel, take your Muslims with you and get lost’.

A police spokeswoman said there was a roughly equal number of counter-demonstrators.

A report from the Interior Ministry in North Rhine-Wesphalia (NRW) state, where Cologne lies, said 516 criminal complaints had been registered, 237 of which were of a sexual nature.

A separate report from the Cologne police gave graphic descriptions of the crimes, listing case after case of women surrounded by gangs of men who put their hands in the victims’ pants and skirts, grabbed them between the legs, on the buttocks and the breasts, often while stealing their wallets and cell phones.

A total of 19 suspects have been identified, all foreigners.

NRW Interior Minister Ralf Jaeger spoke of “serious failures” by the police, who were significantly outnumbered but never called for reinforcements.

He also criticized them for refusing to communicate in the days after New Year’s Eve that the vast majority of the perpetrators were people with migration backgrounds, blaming this on misguided “political correctness”.

“More than 1,000 Arab and North African men gathered on New Year’s Eve near Cologne cathedral and the main train station. Among them were many refugees that came to Germany in the past months,” Jaeger told a special parliamentary committee in NRW.

“After alcohol and drug excesses came the excesses of violence, peaking with people who carried out fantasies of sexual power.”

A survey conducted by polling group Forsa for RTL television showed 60 percent of respondents saw no reason to change their attitude towards foreigners after the assaults. About 37 percent said they viewed foreigners more critically.

In Leipzig, Olaf Schwermer, one of the LEGIDA protestors, said he was concerned about more attacks if borders were not closed and migrants not deported: “What happened in Cologne only gave us a taste of what’s about to come,” he said.

Elsewhere in the city around 250 right-wingers, probably soccer hooligans, were detained after they set bins on fire, damaged property and set off fireworks, a police spokeswoman said.

DANGEROUS

Jaeger said the sexual assaults had come mainly from North Africans who had traveled to Cologne from other cities, but he too warned against a broader backlash against migrants.

“To label certain groups, to stigmatize them as sexual criminals, would not only be wrong, it would be dangerous,” he said. “Those people who make a direct link between immigration and violence are playing into the hands of right-wing extremists.”

Police officer Norbert Wagner told a news conference that rocker and hooligan gangs had published an appeal on the Internet on Sunday to join them in “violence-free strolls” through Cologne, when in fact they were prowling for foreigners.

Among the victims were six Pakistanis, three Guineans and two Syrians. Witnesses had also seen another man of African origin being attacked, but his identity was unclear because he had not contacted authorities, Wagner said.

No arrests have been made. Local police are beefing up their presence in downtown Cologne in the coming days

The Cologne police force has also set up a 100-strong team to investigate the New Year’s Eve attacks and survey exchanges on social media in the run-up to the night.

Merkel has repeatedly resisted pressure to introduce a cap on the number of migrants entering Germany, arguing this would mean shutting the borders, a step that would doom Europe’s Schengen free-travel zone.

She has talked tougher in recent months, vowing in December to “measurably reduce” arrivals and promising at the weekend to give authorities more powers to crack down on migrants who commit crimes, including deporting them.

But her opponents have been swift to blame her for the events in Cologne.

“Anyone who opens the borders wide must know that they are bringing Tahrir Square to Germany,” leading AfD politician Dirk Driesang said, referring to the square in Cairo that was the scene of protests and sexual assaults in 2011.

(Additional reporting by Tina Bellon in Leipzig, Matthias Inverardi in Duesseldorf and Claudia Doerries in Berlin; Writing by Noah Barkin; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

Syrian refugees face another winter in flimsy shelters

BAR ELIAS, Lebanon (Reuters) – Syrian refugee Hussein Hammoud is banking on a broom handle to protect his 12 children from the winter cold. He is using one to prop up the flimsy shelter that has already collapsed once this year under the weight of snow in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.

“The snow brought down the tent on our heads, it broke the wooden frame,” said the 37-year-old from southern Aleppo, a refugee from the war that has been raging in neighboring Syria for nearly five years. “The assistance reaching us is very little in winter – no blankets, no mattresses.”

More than 1 million Syrians are enduring another winter as refugees in Lebanon. For some, it is their fifth in a row, displaced by a war that has driven 4.4 million Syrians into neighboring states from where many are trying to reach Europe.

While the first snow has melted at Hammoud’s camp in Bar elias, rainfall permeates the plastic sheets that fail to fully shield those underneath from the elements. Some bear the emblems of U.N. aid agencies. Others are advertising hoardings.

The snow-capped mountains of nearby Mount Lebanon are visible from the camp comprising around 30 tents separated by a dirt pathway that turns to mud in winter. It is one of more than 3,000 such settlements scattered across Lebanon.

“We have no fuel. Nobody is giving us fuel, and the water in the tent is this much,” said a woman in a purple scarf who gave her name as Umm Khalaf, holding her hands apart to show how badly it had flooded.

The winter brings other problems, too. Refugees in remote areas stranded by snow cannot reach shops to buy food and water.

“Clean water freezes in the tanks, sanitation becomes an issue, and diseases can spread more easily,” said Fran Beyrtison, Lebanon representative of aid agency Oxfam.

“Lebanon and the UN recently issued an appeal to help up to 2.9 million vulnerable people. The international community needs to fund this appeal urgently to allow aid to reach people in need,” she said. The appeal, for $2.5 billion, includes vulnerable Lebanese in addition to Syrian refugees.

UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency, has provided support including stoves, blankets, mattresses and “insulation kits” that include insulating foam and timber, though these are designed for refugees living in larger buildings, said Dana Sleiman, UNHCR spokeswoman in Lebanon.

“We did our best to make sure that refugees are able to stay as warm and dry as possible this winter and avoid some of the issues we saw last year, like flooding,” she said.

For Umm Khalaf and others at Bar elias, another problem is explaining the situation to their children.

“The children cry and ask ‘Why is this happening’? We reply ‘God will take care of it’. What can we do?” she said.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Men who entered U.S. as refugees face terrorism charges

A pair of men who entered the United States as refugees several years ago are now facing federal charges spurring from alleged ties to terrorism, the Department of Justice announced Thursday.

The men, both Palestinians born in Iraq, were arrested in Texas and California. The Department of Justice announced the arrests separately and gave no indication the cases were connected.

Both cases involve men accused about lying about their alleged connections to terrorist organizations, either in talks with immigration officials or on official immigration forms.

Both men were scheduled to appear in court on Friday.

The first case involves a 24-year-old who had been living in Houston.

According to a news release from the Department of Justice, Omar Faraj Saeed Al Hardan came to the United States as an Iraqi refugee in late 2009. He became a legal permanent resident in 2011, and court filings show he allegedly sought to become a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2014.

Prosecutors are accusing Al Hardan of providing material support to the Islamic State and lying about his alleged involvement with the organization on that naturalization application.

“He allegedly represented that he was not associated with a terrorist organization when, in fact, he associated with members and sympathizers of ISIL throughout 2014,” the Department of Justice said in a news release, using an acronym for the Islamic State.

Al Hardan is also accused of receiving automatic machine gun training and not disclosing that on his application and in a subsequent interview with immigration officials, according to court records.

The other case involves a 23-year-old who was living in Sacramento.

Prosecutors allege Aws Mohammed Younis Al-Jayab entered the United States as an Iraqi refugee in October 2012 and subsequently used social media to discuss his plans to travel to Syria and fight alongside terrorists. He allegedly traveled to Syria by way of Turkey in November 2013, and prosecutors claim he posted about fighting there before returning to the United States in January 2014.

According to court filings, immigration officials interviewed Al-Jayab in October 2014 and claimed he told them he was visiting his grandmother in Turkey. He also allegedly lied about his actions in Syria, and prosecutors charged him with making false statements about international terrorism.

“While he represented a potential safety threat, there is no indication that he planned any acts of terrorism in this country,” U.S. Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner said in a statement.

The arrests came on the same day the Justice Department announced an Uzbek national living in Idaho received a 25-year-prison sentence and a $250,000 fine for terrorism charges.

Prosecutors had alleged that 33-year-old Fazliddin Kurbanov had purchased bomb-making components and was storing them at his apartment in Boise. Prosecutors had accused him of speaking to people connected with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and mentioning military bases as possible targets for a terrorist attack on American soil.

“The worst of intentions on the part of Mr. Kurbanov, that is the mass killing of Americans, were thwarted by the best of collaboration on the part of the entire law enforcement community,” FBI Special Agent in Charge Eric Barnhart said in a statement announcing the conviction.

The Justice Department said Kurbanov will face deportation proceedings once released from prison.

Asylum seekers among suspects in Cologne’s New Year violence

BERLIN (Reuters) – Nearly two dozen asylum seekers are among those suspected of involvement in mass assaults and muggings on New Year’s Eve in Cologne, officials said on Friday, intensifying a debate about Germany’s welcome for hundreds of thousands of migrants.

Some 121 women are reported to have been robbed, threatened or sexually molested by gangs of men of foreign descent as revelers partied near the city’s twin-spired Gothic cathedral.

The assaults have shocked many Germans and led to calls for tougher laws to punish migrants who commit crimes. On Friday, Cologne police chief Wolfgang Albers, who had been heavily criticism for his handling of the violence and police communications afterwards, was dismissed.

Some 1.1 million migrants arrived in Germany last year, far more than in any other European country, most of them fleeing war or deprivation in the Middle East.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has resisted domestic pressure to introduce a formal cap on the numbers, repeating her “We can do this” mantra to Germans. But the Cologne attacks have deepened scepticism among the population.

Cologne police said on Friday that they had arrested two males aged 16 and 23 with “North African roots” suspected of involvement in the assaults.

SUSPECTS IDENTIFIED

Separately, German federal police said they had identified 32 people who were suspected of playing a role in the violence, 22 of whom were in the process of seeking asylum in Germany.

The federal police documented 76 criminal acts, most them involving some form of theft, and seven linked to sexual molestation.

Of the 32 suspects, nine were Algerian, eight Moroccan, five Iranian, and four Syrian. Three German citizens, an Iraqi, a Serb and a U.S. citizen were also identified.

Interior Ministry spokesman Tobias Plate did not say if any of the suspects had been charged. “The investigations are ongoing,” he said.

Federal police were on duty inside Cologne’s main train station, while state police were deployed outside, near the cathedral, where most of the assaults appear to have taken place. So the numbers probably represent only a portion of the crimes that took place.

Amateur videos from the night show groups of young men jumping around chaotically, shooting fireworks into the crowd and pushing bystanders. A full police report on the evening is due in the coming days.

In response to the assaults, Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) have called for tougher penalties against offending asylum-seekers.

“WHY SHOULD GERMANS PAY?”

A draft paper seen by Reuters ahead of a meeting of the party leadership in Mainz said migrants who have been sentenced to prison or probation should be ineligible for asylum.

“Why should German taxpayers pay to imprison foreign criminals?” said Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, leader of the Social Democrats (SPD), Merkel’s coalition partner.

“The threat of having to spend time behind bars in their home country is far more of a deterrent than a prison sentence in Germany.”

The CDU paper calls for lower barriers to the deportation of criminal asylum seekers, increased video surveillance, and the creation of a new criminal offense of physical assault.

The attacks have raised doubts over whether Germany, which has a large Turkish Muslim community dating from an influx of workers in the 1960s and 70s, can successfully integrate the latest wave despite Merkel’s attempts at reassurance.

“There are many refugees that are happy to have survived, to have made it here, and who are looking for jobs. These people who can contribute to our country are welcome,” Peter Tauber, general secretary of Merkel’s party, told Deutschlandfunk radio.

“But clearly there are also some who haven’t understood what kind of opportunity they’ve been given.”

Julia Kloeckner, leader of the CDU in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate and seen as a possible successor to Merkel, told ZDF television the attacks had been a wake-up call for Germany.

“I think we really need to take off the blinkers,” she said.

(Reporting by Andreas Rinke, Caroline Copley, Paul Carrel and Noah Barkin; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Alabama suing federal government over refugee resettlement plans

Alabama is taking the federal government to court over the Obama administration’s plans to resettle refugees in America, claiming the White House hasn’t told the state enough about the process and that lack of dialogue and information constitutes a violation of federal law.

Governor Robert Bentley announced the lawsuit in a news release on Thursday, arguing the government wasn’t following the rules laid out in the Refugee Act of 1980.

Alabama is arguing the state was “denied a meaningful role and input into the process” of the government resettling refugees in the state, despite the act requiring the government to consult states before it places any refugees in their communities, according to the governor’s statement.

Bentley was one of several governors who have publicly announced their states will not accept any Syrian refugees. He originally made the announcement in November, just two days after the Paris attacks, and specifically mentioned those attacks when initially making his announcement.

The governor’s office said Thursday the lawsuit covers all refugees that the government wants to place in the state, including those from places other than Syria. The lawsuit references concerns about terrorism.

“Regarding security, Alabama shares the concerns of the intelligence community – including those of the Nation’s highest ranking intelligence officials – that sufficient information is lacking to ensure that certain refugees – including those from Syria – have neither provided material support to terrorists nor are terrorists themselves,” the lawsuit reads.

In announcing the lawsuit, Bentley said he has sent the White House three letters about the program and its potential impacts on Alabama, but “these letters have gone unanswered.”

“As Governor, the Alabama Constitution gives me the sovereign authority and solemn duty to protect the health, safety and welfare of all citizens of Alabama,” Bentley continued in his statement. “The process and manner in which the Obama Administration and the federal government are executing the Refugee Reception Program is blatantly excluding the states.”

Alabama is arguing that because it doesn’t have any information about the refugees, the state can’t prepare for their arrival and their potential impact on public safety and social programs.

Defendants in the lawsuit include the United States, the State Department, the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of Refugee Resettlement, as well as some leaders in those departments, court filings show.

The governor’s office said the lawsuit is asking for the government to admit it didn’t adequately consult Alabama, medical histories and complete files of every refugee and certification that none of the refugees represent a security risk. The lawsuit is also asking the government to declare it can’t place any refugees in Alabama until it first addresses those other responsibilities.

Germans shaken by New Year attacks on women in Cologne

By Madeline Chambers

BERLIN (Reuters) – About 90 women have reported being robbed, threatened or sexually molested at New Year celebrations outside Cologne’s cathedral by young, mostly drunk, men, police said on Tuesday, in events they have described as ‘a new dimension in crime’.

Cologne police chief Wolfgang Albers told a news conference officers described the men as looking as if they were from “the Arab or North African region” and mostly between 18 and 35 years old. “We have one complaint that represents a rape,” he added.

Integration commissioner Aydan Ozoguz warned against putting foreigners and refugees, hundreds of thousands of whom have entered Germany largely from Middle Eastern war zones, under “blanket suspicion”.

Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed shock over the attacks that police said occurred when about 1,000 men split into gangs as officers cleared a square to stop fireworks being thrown from the top of steps into the crowd below.

While politicians also urged people not to become wary of all refugees, the incident fueled calls from right-wing groups to stop letting in migrants.

Germany took in just over a million last year, far more than any other European country.

Cologne mayor Henriette Reker said it was “unbelievable and intolerable what happened on New Year’s Eve” but there was no reason to believe those involved in the attacks were refugees.

Justice Minister Heiko Maas said Germany would not accept such attacks which he described as “a new scale of organized crime”.

Around 150 people gathered in front of Cologne’s cathedral on Tuesday evening to protest against violence against women. One of them held a sign saying: “Ms Merkel where are you? What do you say? This scares us!”

“TOUGH RESPONSE”

The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has gained in polls in part at Merkel’s expense thanks to a campaign against refugees, said she should close the border.

“Mrs Merkel, is Germany ‘colorful and cosmopolitan’ enough for you after the wave of crimes and sexual attacks?” tweeted AfD chief Frauke Petry.

Merkel told Reker in a phone call the attacks deserved a tough response.

“Everything must be done to investigate those responsible as quickly and completely as possible and punish them, regardless of where they are from,” she said, according to her spokesman.

There are almost daily attacks on refugee shelters.

“Events like that in Cologne foster xenophobia,” said Roland Schaefer, head of Germany’s association of towns and localities.

After a crisis meeting, Cologne mayor Reker said new steps would be taken to avoid a repeat, including increasing police numbers at big events and installing more security cameras.

She stressed that women must feel safe at traditional carnival celebrations next month when the city closes down for five days of drunken street parades and parties.

Reker was stabbed in the neck and seriously hurt in October, just a day before she was elected mayor. Police said that attack appeared to be motivated by her support for refugees.

(Additional reporting by Joseph Nasr and Matthias Sobolewski in Berlin and Andreas Kranz in Cologne; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)

Number of European Migrants, Refugees Now Officially Tops 1 Million

More than 1 million migrants and refugees traveled to Europe in 2015, according to data released Tuesday by the International Office of Migration (IOM).

The office placed the approximate total of refugee and migrant arrivals in Europe at 1,005,504 through Monday. The office said it was the highest flow of displaced people since World War II.

The overwhelming majority of the migrants and refugees arrived by sea, according to the IOM. Approximately 97 percent (971,289) traveled that way, while only 34,215 journeyed by land.
Most of the new arrivals were from South Asia, Africa and Syria, where an ongoing civil war has forced millions of people to flee their homes and travel to other countries in search of new lives.

The data was announced days after a United Nations Refugee Agency report indicated the number of displaced people around the globe likely “far surpassed” 60 million, a record total. That U.N. report covers refugees, asylum seekers and so-called internally displaced people, or those who have been forced to flee their homes but were still currently living in their countries.

The surge in migrant and refugee arrivals has become a contested political issue in Europe, with widespread debate about policies and security. In a joint statement with the IOM, the United Nations Refugee Agency described Europe’s initial reaction to the arrivals as “chaotic,” with thousands of refugees traveling through Greece only to be unable to cross certain borders, but noted “a more coordinated European response is beginning to take shape.”

Still, there remain some concerns about the arrival of refugees — particularly from Syria, the most common place of origin for refugees — as one of the men behind the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris had a forged Syrian passport, fueling concerns that he was posing as a refugee.

“As anti-foreigner sentiments escalate in some quarters, it is important to recognize the positive contributions that refugees and migrants make to the societies in which they live and also honor core European values: protecting lives, upholding human rights and promoting tolerance and diversity,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said in a statement.

The United Nations reported that 50 percent of the refugees arriving in Europe were traveling from Syria. Another 20 percent were from Afghanistan and another 7 percent came from Iraq.

The IOM reported 3,692 refugees were killed on their journeys, about 400 more than 2014. The IOM’s director general, William Lacy Swing, called for improvements to the migration process.

“Migration must be legal, safe and secure for all – both for the migrants themselves and the countries that will become their new homes,” Swing said in a statement.

Cholera Outbreak Threatening World’s Largest Refugee Camp

A cholera outbreak is sweeping through the largest refugee camp in the world.

Doctors Without Borders, a medical charity, reported that seven people have died in Dadaab since the debilitating diarrhoeal disease first hit the Kenyan settlement back on November 23.

In a news release, the doctors said the disease has sickened more than 540 Dadaab residents in all, and doctors built a dedicated treatment center for cholera patients. Doctors said they have seen about 307 in the past three weeks, about 30 percent of whom were children less than 12.

According to the World Health Organization, an arm of the United Nations, cholera is a bacterial disease that can kill within hours if it isn’t treated. The disease is usually transmitted through contaminated food or water, and is fueled by poor hygiene. Refugee camps are particularly at risk for outbreaks because their residents often lack access to clean water and proper sanitation.

Doctors Without Borders reported that funding cuts have accelerated the outbreak, as Dadaab hasn’t received any soap in two months and there aren’t enough latrines for its residents. More than 330,000 refugees live there, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency. The doctors worry seasonal rains could lead to more cases, as the weather has already exacerbated the issue.

“After each heavy rain, we see an increase of patients in our treatment (center),” Charles Gaudry, the head of Doctors Without Borders’ mission in Kenya, said in a statement.

Doctors Without Borders said its staff is working to educate the refugees about cholera and decontaminating the living spaces of infected patients, but called for more long-term solutions and improvements at Dadaab, which is located near Kenya’s eastern border with Somalia.

“The fact that this outbreak has occurred further highlights the dire hygiene and living conditions in the camp and a lack of proper long-term investment in sanitation services,” Gaudry said in a statement.

New U.N. Data Suggests Record 60 Million People Displaced Worldwide

The number of people forced to flee their homes in 2015 likely “far surpassed” 60 million, a new record for global displacement, a new report from the United Nations Refugee Agency indicates.

The report, published Friday, projects that about 1 in every 122 people in the world have been forcibly displaced from their homes as a result of conflict or persecution. It’s based on data from the first half of the year, which indicated global surges in refugees, asylum-seekers and so-called internally displaced persons, or people who fled their homes but still live in their own countries.

According to the report, there were 20.2 million global refugees at end of June. It was a rise from last year’s total of 19.5 million, and the first time that number hit 20 million since 1992.

The U.N. report also documented a 78 percent increase in applications for asylum during the first half of 2015, from last year’s total of 558,000 to this year’s figure of 993,600. And the number of internally displaced people hit 34 million, an increase of about 2 million over 2014.

“Never has there been a greater need for tolerance, compassion and solidarity with people who have lost everything,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said in a statement.

The Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research, which analyzes global conflict, reported 46 highly violent conflicts in 2014, the most recent year for which data is available.

The U.N. report indicates Syria’s civil war remains the single largest driver behind displacement, with about 4.2 million people fleeing the war-torn nation and another 7.6 million forced out of their homes but still in the country as of mid-2015. But the report notes that even without Syria included in the totals, there still would have been a 5 percent global rise in refugees since 2011.

There was also a rise in new refugees this year — about 839,000 in six months, or 4,600 a day. About half came from Syria and the Ukraine, the site of another armed conflict. Globally, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Myanmar, Eritrea and Iraq were the 10 countries that produced the most refugees.

A large number of refugees flee to neighboring countries, the report indicated. Turkey hosts the most refugees — 1.84 million in all, 1.81 of them from Syria — followed by Pakistan with 1.5 million, “virtually all of them from Afghanistan.” Lebanon is third with 1.2 million — 99 percent of them from Syria — followed by Iran, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, Uganda, Chad and Sudan.

The United Nations warned that countries hosting the refugees are facing growing pressure, which, if unmanaged, “can increase resentment and abet politicization of refugees.” The report also indicated refugees in this day and age are less likely to return home than at any other point in the past 30 years, according to a statistic the United Nations calls the voluntary return rate.

In terms of asylum, Germany was the runaway leader in new applications. It received 159,900 in the first six months of 2015, nearly equaling the 173,100 it received in 2014. The country is known for having extremely favorable, yet often criticized policies for those who seek to resettle there. Russia was next with about 100,000 — fueled by conflict in Ukraine, the report indicates.

The United States was third with 78,200. While that was an increase of 44 percent from last year, the report indicated that most people who sought asylum in the United States were from countries like El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras and China. Syria wasn’t mentioned.

Other countries in the top 10 for most new asylum applications were Hungary, Turkey, South Africa, Serbia, Italy, France and Austria.

The report indicated there were 6.5 million internally displaced people in Columbia, 4 million in Iraq and 2.3 million in Sudan. Pakistan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria and Ukraine also had more than 1.4 million internally displaced people. Yemen, the site of an ongoing civil war, and Afghanistan also saw surges in their figures, the report indicated.

UNICEF: 1 in 8 Children Born into Conflict Zones

One in every eight global births this year has occurred in a conflict zone, according to UNICEF.

The United Nations Children’s Fund said Thursday that more than 16 million children entered the world in a territory marred by conflict in 2015, which amounted to one every two seconds.

The recently published statistics provided an alarming glimpse into the effects that conflict have on children worldwide, as well as the role that violence has played in the ongoing migrant crisis.

UNICEF reported that more than 250 million children — about a ninth of the global child population — are currently living in conflict zones. Another 200,000 sought asylum in the European Union between January and September of this year as their families fled violence.

The world hasn’t seen a level of displacement like this since World War II, UNICEF said.

The Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research, which analyzes conflict throughout the globe, reported there were 46 highly violent conflicts in 2014, the most recent year for which data is available. That’s up a tick from 45 in 2013, and far ahead of the 24 such conflicts of 2005.

Some of the notable nations currently experiencing conflict are Afghanistan, Iran, South Sudan, Yemen and Syria, where an ongoing civil war has driven millions of people from their homes. But children born into those and other conflict zones face additional challenges beyond violence.

UNICEF reported that more than 500 million children live in extremely flood-prone areas, while another 160 million live in areas known to experience high or severe droughts. Healthwise, children in conflict zones are more likely to die before the age of 5 and they also have a higher risk of experiencing extreme stress, which can stunt their cognitive and emotional development.