We can't deter people fleeing for their lives. They will come. The choice we have is how well we manage their arrival, and how humanely.
While every refugee's story is different and their anguish personal, they all share a common thread of uncommon courage - the courage not only to survive, but to persevere and rebuild their shattered lives.
We need to be able to demonstrate that what we do in today's world, in humanitarian aid, the enormous effort to minimize the tragic situations that we see all over the world, I think, without the U.N., people would suffer much more, and the situation would be much more terrible.
Syria has become the great tragedy of this century - a disgraceful humanitarian calamity with suffering and displacement unparalleled in recent history.
What I think it's important to recognize in today's world is that all of our societies are multiethnic, multi-religious and multicultural. And that is a positive thing. That's a richness, and also strength. But we also have to recognize that, for those societies to be harmonious, there is a lot of the investment that needs to be made in social cohesion and inclusivity. But the important thing to recognize, and particularly Europe, most of the terrorist attacks are not done by people that came from the outside. They are homegrown.
...in the midst of migrants in search of a better life there are people in need of protection: refugees and asylum-seekers, women and children victims of trafficking...Many move simply to avoid dying of hunger. When leaving is not an option but a necessity, this is more than poverty.
The international community has to overcome its differences and find solutions to the conflicts of today in South Sudan, Syria, Central African Republic and elsewhere. Non-traditional donors need to step up alongside traditional donors. As many people are forcibly displaced today as the entire populations of medium-to-large countries such as Colombia or Spain, South Africa or South Korea.
Thus, on this World Refugee Day, let us take time to recognize and draw inspiration from these ordinary people who have shown such extraordinary courage - the world's millions of refugees and displaced.
When food becomes scarce, refugees often turn to desperate measures to feed themselves and their families. We are particularly worried about the health of the refugee population, domestic violence and refugees resorting to illegal employment or even to prostitution, just to put enough food on the table.
It is, for me, clear that the world needs a United States that is engaged in security issues, in development issues, in human rights issues. The contribution of the United States for global affairs is absolutely crucial. And the cooperation with the U.N. is very important from our perspective.
Now, it's high time for all those that have an influence on the parties with the conflict to understand that it is in the interest of everybody to put an end to this conflict. But this kind of persuasion, this kind of intense pressure, I believe it's my duty to do, even if I recognize that the contradictions and the different perceptions of interest that exist are making it very difficult.
I think that it's very important to have the United States' engagement in many situations we have around the world, be it in Syria, be it in the African context. The United States represents an important set of values, human rights, values related to freedom, to democracy. And so the foreign policy engagement of the United States is a very important guarantee that those values can be properly pursued.
