71st UN General Assembly Underway

Week-long event includes a high-level summit on refugees and migrants which is to be co-chaired by Ireland and Jordan.

UN Headquarters in New York. Image couresty of www.cfr.org.

World leaders will gather at the United Nations headquarter in Manhattan, New York today ahead of a week long review of world affairs. Today (Monday), the focus of the agenda is on agreeing a concrete plan to help the sixty five million people in our world who have been displaced due to political crises and war. 

Today's summit will look at the root causes of large movements of refugees while also highlighting the positive contributions that migrants make. The New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants will be adopted by the UN this evening. It focuses on improving the governance surrounding international migration and to create a more predictable system for dealing with large movements of refugess and migrants.

Charlie Flanagan, Minister for Foreign Affairs, will address the UN General Assembly later today while Frances Fitzgerald, Minister for Justice, will co-chair proceedings on behalf of Ireland.

However, Trocáire are yet to be convinced that the summit may result in tangible improvements for refugees and migrants. Trocáire suggests the outcome of the summit will be 'non-binding' and countries will not be held to account. The charity claims that just 311 Syrian migrants have arrived in Ireland so far this year in spite of a committment to take 4,000. 

According to the UNHCR - the United Nation's Refugee agency - over ten million refugees are under the age of eighteen.  Between the refugee camps in Italy and Greece, there are over 15,000 unaccompanied children. 

2015 figures from the UNHCR also reveal that 54% of all refugees came from three countries, the majority of these from Syria, followed by Afghanistan and Somalia. In terms of hosting migrants, the UNHCR reported that Turkey hosted the largest number of refugees worldwide, followed by Pakistan and Lebanon.

Listen here to a report by RTE Radio 1 on how sixteen year-old Nadia from Somalia arrived to Ireland unaccompanied.