International Refugee Organization

The third annual report of the International Refugee Organization was submitted to the thirteenth session of the Economic and Social Council. In the report the organization announced that in 1950 it “came within sight of its goal, the solving of the refugee problem resulting from World War II and its immediate aftermath.†By the end of the year, 1,525,643 refugees had been given assistance of one kind or another, 71,695 had been repatriated to their countries of origin, 879,403 had been resettled in new countries, and others had been settled in countries of asylum. The number actually resettled during 1950 was 191,119 – 150,844 less than in 1949, but it included a much higher proportion of cases requiring special welfare assistance, “uneconomic†family groups and other difficult cases. “Of the 489,000 persons eligible for resettlement assistance at the beginning of 1950, only 181,000 were considered to be resettleable on the basis of established criteria for immigration schemes likely to be open to them. The number of openings actually found and filled, however, exceeded this number by 10,119 indicating general response to the Organization's appeals for more liberal standards and its concerted campaign on behalf of the so-called ‘Institutional Hard Core’†.