Agência Brasil

Brasília - A cooperation accord signed on Friday (1) by Minister Matilde Ribeiro, of the Special Secretariat of Policies for the Promotion of Racial Equality, and the representative of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Brazil, Luiz Varese, will make it possible to conduct activities to provide humanitarian assistance to irregular immigrants in Brazil and to integrate refugees.

During a seminar, "Refugees, Immigrants, and International Humanitarian Protection: Plan of Action for Brazil," held last week in Brasília, Varese emphasized that "contributing to the betterment of the lives of these individuals through the improvement of government policies permits the exercise of ethics in human relations." And the Minister recalled that, since its creation, the Secretariat "has received a growing number of aid requests from humanitarian organizations."

According to the Secretariat's press office, the cooperation accord is aimed at the joint promotion of activities designed to provide humanitarian and legal assistance to irregular immigrants, from their arrival in Brazilian territory to the processing of their requests for refugee status by the National Committee for Refugees (Conare). According to UNHCR data, there are 17 million refugees all over the world. 78.9% of the refugees in Brazil come from Africa.

Translation: David Silberstein