IRNA – The representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to Tehran Sivanka Dana Pala said the world contribution in helping Iran cope with the refugee issues is poor.


He made the remarks in a meeting with the Governor General of this central Iran province Rasoul Zargarpour here on Tuesday night.

The UN official is heading a delegation to Isfahan province to explore situation of the Afghan and Iraqi refugees in the province as well as the facilities offered to them.

He said compared with what Iran spends on refugee issues, the contributions made by the international community to help it tackle the problem is too poor.

Noting that Iran spent a total of 52 million dollars on refugees last year, he said the Islamic Republic recived only eight million dollars from world organizations which is quite a small amount.

Pala said Iran is hosting three million refugees at the present time making it a very difficult task to provide facilities to them.

Meanwhile, Zargarpour said that 15 percent of the refugees residing in Iran live in this province, making the number of registered Afghan and Iraqi refugees in the province to stand at 120,000 with the number of unregistered ones quite an equivalent.

He said over 5,000 refugee students go to 160 schools across the province.

The official stressed that refugees have indiscriminate access to hospitals and other health services.

He said work permissions have been issued for three thousand refugees in the province as well.

The Governor General further believed that political stability and security in the region is the only solution to tackle the issue of refugees.

He hoped the ambassadors of European countries which accommodate refugees could increase their contributions to the host countries to help them improve their services.

The delegation the UNHCR representative is leading to the province includes ambassadors of Australia, India, Japan, Sweden, Turkey, the UK and Afghanistan in Iran.