The quota for Australia’s initial additional resettlement of 12,000 refugees from Syria and Iraq – external to its annual humanitarian intake of 13,750 – has been filled. But he said Australia needed to accept refugees from the conflict on the basis of those in most acute need of protection, not on any sectarian division. In the same 12 months those countries had settled 10,000 and 30,000 refugees under additional intakes respectively, Australia had accepted just 2,000. There were also concerns that Australia, in identifying persecuted minorities for resettlement, had preferenced Christians over refugees of other religions. In February, the Fairfield city mayor, Frank Carbone, said his council had resettled one fifth of all of Australia’s humanitarian migrants last financial year.

Source: The Guardian April 10, 2017 20:03 UTC