"Currently home to almost 14,000 refugees and asylum seekers, Indonesia is working together with UNHCR (the United Nations Refugee Agency) and IOM (International Organisation for Migration) to provide temporary shelters and facilitate refugee processing particularly through repatriation and resettlement programme. In the past we have also taken to provide humanitarian assistance to refugee and asylum-seekers. Between 1975 and 1969, we took over 250,000 refugees and asylum-seekers resulting from internal conflict from countries in the region like Vietnam. We dedicate an island Pulau Galang which processed these refugees' asylum over twenty years. However, today the challenge of addressing refugees and asylum seekers is much more different than our experience back in 1975. Today, a holistic approach is necessary to deal with the multi-dimensional phenomena of irregular immigration."
The Vice President of Indonesia addressed a United Nations session on Monday after global leaders approved a declaration aimed at providing a more coordinated and humane response to the refugee crisis.
Indonesia has been a destination for international migration in the form of the stateless Muslim Rohingya people who fled across the sea to the largely Muslim country from Myanmar where they faced persecution.
Muhammad Jusuf Kalla said that Indonesia was party to "almost 14,000 refugees and asylum-seekers" and his country was attempting to provide adequate shelter for them.
He also touched on Indonesia's past, when the country provided humanitarian assistance to those fleeing internal conflict in their countries such as Vietnam.
Around the world more people have been forced to flee their homes than at any time since World War II, straining resources and stoking divisions around the world.
The issue of what to do about the world's 65.3 million displaced people will take centre-stage at the General Assembly with leaders from the United Nations' 193-member states converging on New York for the first-ever summit on Addressing Large Movements of Refugees and Migrants.
Global leaders on Monday approved a declaration which contains no concrete commitments and is not legally binding but rather calls on countries to protect refugees' human rights, boost humanitarian aid and increase resettlement of refugees.
AP
(brl/red)
