MOSCOW (Sputnik) —The United Kingdom will take in, and resettle, thousands more Syrian refugees, UK Prime Minister David Cameron announced Friday, after repeated calls to accept more asylum seekers.
"As I said earlier this week, we will accept thousands more under these existing schemes and we keep them under review…And given the scale of the crisis and the suffering of the people, today I can announce that we will do more – providing resettlement for thousands more Syrian refugees," Cameron said in a statement published on the government's official website.
"We will continue with our approach of taking them from the refugee camps. This provides them with a more direct and safe route to the UK, rather than risking the hazardous journey which has tragically cost so many lives," the British leader said.
According to the EU border agency Frontex, over 340,000 refugees and migrants illegally crossed the European Union's external borders between January and July 2015, which is three times higher than during the same period of the previous year.
On Wednesday, the British leader urged to focus on settling the Syrian conflict instead of admitting more migrants from the country into the European Union.