GENEVA, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- An additional 40,000 resettlement places need to be made available for refugees located in 15 priority countries along the central Mediterranean route, UN Refugee Agency said Monday.
"These 40,000 resettlement places, which will complement already existing commitments, will be crucial to help the most vulnerable refugees along the Central Mediterranean route," said Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in a statement.
The UNHCR hosted the first meeting on Monday of the "core group for enhanced resettlement and complementary pathways" along the route.
"So far, the response has been very far from adequate, with only 6,700 refugees along the routes to Libya resettled so far this year," said Grandi.
Chaired by France, the core group includes resettlement countries as well as the UN migration agency (IOM), the European Union (EU) and UNHCR. Eighteen states were present at the opening meeting.
In 2016, resettlement opportunities were offered to only 6 percent of the refugees in need in the 15 priority countries of asylum and transit along the central Mediterranean route, where the total number of people needing resettlement is estimated to stand at 277,000, said UNHCR.
The 15 priority countries of asylum along the central Mediterranean route are Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Sudan and Tunisia.
