Malaysia to accept 3,000 Syrian refugees, says Najib

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak at the 70th session of the UN General Assembly in New York. Najib says Malaysia will welcome 3,000 Syrian migrants over the next 3 years. – Reuters pic, October 2, 2015.Malaysia will open its doors to 3,000 Syrian migrants over the next three years to help alleviate the refugee crisis, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

Najib said Muslim countries are partly responsible for ensuring the well-being of the marginalised Syrians fleeing their country in massive numbers, causing social and economic stresses in Europe.

“This is why Malaysia has taken, over the years, many people fleeing war, starvation and persecution. We currently have hundreds of thousands of irregular migrants, and we took in more earlier this year when there was a dire humanitarian situation in the Andaman Sea," he said at the 70th session of the United Nations General Assembly yesterday.

It was reported that some four million Syrian refugees fled into neighbouring countries over the last four years, and slipped inexorably into poverty.

Najib said new international solutions are needed to deal with the migration crisis.

He said that "we must respect our common humanity" and the fleeing of millions of Syrians from their own country should be a world concern.

"For it is only when we transcend the silos of race and faith, only when we look at images of desperate migrants, the victims of extremists, and those whose lives are degraded by hunger and poverty – and see not strangers, but our brothers and sisters, and it is only when we see that dreadful picture of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi washed ashore – and recognise our own children in that tragic boy’s innocent face – that we will act as our better selves.

"People around the world cry out for our help. We cannot, we must not, pass on by," Najib said. – Bernama, October 2, 2015.