WASHINGTON, (Sputnik) — Europe is facing one of its biggest migration problems in decades as hundreds of thousands of refugees from war-torn Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq seek asylum in Northern Europe after entering Greece.
“We would urge all the governments in the region to develop appropriate facilities for proper screening of migrants and the provision of life-sustaining assistance,” Toner said on Tuesday.
Toner underscored that providing refugees with safe-haven is a temporary solution.
“What we really need to do is attack the root causes, so we need to put in place a credible peaceful political resolution to the conflict in Syria,” he added.
The four year Syrian civil war has left 7.6 million people internally displaced and another 4 million people living as refugees outside the country, according to the United Nations.