OIC chief: Syrian refugee crisis is the worst since World War II

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Sunday 13 Sep 2015 - 13:57 Makkah mean time-29-11-1436 Jeddah (IINA) - Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Iyad Madani said Sunday that the Syrian refugee crisis is a humanitarian and political tragedy that poses a challenge to the Islamic nation and for the organization, describing it as the worst refugee crisis since World War II. This came at the opening of the emergency open-ended meeting of the Executive Committee at the level of permanent representatives, which was held in Jeddah this morning to discuss the Syrian refugee crisis. Madani said that the collapse of Syria has caused millions of Syrians to flee into neighboring countries, and it created a favorable atmosphere for the emergence of extremist groups such as Daesh (so called Islamic State). The Secretary General stressed that both the Islamic countries and the countries of the region need to cooperate in developing a new approach in order to contain this crisis. He pointed out that a number of Muslim countries, including Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, have received more than 7 million Syrian refugees so far. Furthermore, Madani called on the OIC member states to ease their asylum policies, and to contribute in humanitarian works in order to take in and help as many refugees as possible. He also proposed to revisit the organization’s method of handling this issue and suggested the establishment of a new fund for rapidly and effectively responding to crises and disasters.  The secretary general noted that the massive influx of Syrian refugees to Europe and other parts of the world was the inevitable consequence of the international community’s failure to find a solution to the Syrian conflict. AG/IINA