MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The United Kingdom has resettled 1,000 refugees from Syria since September, UK Prime Minister David Cameron said Wednesday.
"I made a promise that we would resettle a 1,000 Syrians by Christmas and I can confirm today that we have met our commitment. The charter flights that arrived yesterday at Stansted and Belfast mean that over a 1,000 have been settled and another flight is coming today," Cameron announced while speaking in the House of Commons Chamber, as quoted by the UK government's website.
In September, the prime minister refused to participate in the EU quota scheme to redistribute 160,000 asylum seekers throughout the bloc over two years, pledging instead that the United Kingdom would take in up to 20,000 refugees from refugee camps in states neighboring Syria by 2020.
Europe is currently struggling to deal with a massive refugee influx, as hundreds of thousands of people flee conflict-torn countries in the Middle East and North Africa in search of safety and refuge. Some 989,215 migrants and refugees have entered Europe by both sea and land since the beginning of 2015, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
