UN urges Europe not to blame refugees for attacks in Paris

The UN urged European countries not to react to the attacks in Paris by rejecting or blaming refugees, the vast majority of whom were fleeing persecution or conflict.

“We are concerned about reactions by some states to end the programmes being put in place, backtracking from commitments made to manage the refugee crisis [ie relocation], or proposing the erection of more barriers,” Melissa Fleming, chief spokeswoman for UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, said.

“We are deeply disturbed by language that demonises refugees as a group.

"This is dangerous as it will contribute to xenophobia and fear,” she said.

The best response would be to immediately improve arrival processing in Greece and Italy and implement the EU’s plan to relocate 160,000 refugees.

“We believe that if this had been done from the beginning we never would have seen these images on our screens of people on the march through Europe.

"It wouldn’t have solved it but it would have gone a long way to managing it.”

Asked whether UNHCR had warned of the risk that the badly-managed influx could allow militants to slip into Europe, she said it had warned in general terms of the importance of proper screening.

Joel Millman, spokesman for the International Organization for Migration, said out of about 1.1m arrivals in Europe in the past few years, at most a handful had names that raised questions with respect to possible links to extremism.