UN General Assembly
2001

humanitarian grounds. As a consequence, we now have on Nauru nearly 800 asylum seekers from Afghanistan, 3 Iraq and Palestine — 10 per cent of the whole population of Nauru — along with migration personnel from the United Nations, the International Organization for Migration and Australia. The asylum seekers are now being processed. I have taken it upon myself to personally visit the camps from time to time and to mingle with these unfortunate people, and on several occasions have sat down and broken bread with them. I found that they are like you and me. They are brave human beings seeking a better life for themselves and their children and escape from the oppression back home. The resources of the United Nations need to be augmented to cope with this humanitarian tragedy, and the international community needs to urgently tackle the problem in a coordinated manner, not only in terms of providing assistance and refuge where possible, but also in terms of addressing the sources and causes of refugees, people- smuggling and terrorism. Understanding and responding will not necessarily