UN human rights chief attacks Europe’s ‘chilling indifference’ to refugees as 2017 sees record deaths

The UN’s human rights chief has attacked the “chilling indifference” to the deaths of thousands of refugees shown by European leaders as the crackdown continues across the continent.

Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that although “heroic efforts” are underway to save lives in the Mediterranean, governments are turning their backs on those who survive the treacherous journey.

“Many ordinary people in Europe have welcomed and supported migrants, but political leaders increasingly demonstrate a chilling indifference to their fate,” he told a meeting of the UN human rights council in Geneva.

“I am particularly disturbed by lurid public narratives which appear deliberately aimed at stirring up public fear and panic, by depicting these vulnerable people as criminal invading hordes.”

The issue became a topic of debate during the EU referendum, when Nigel Farage unveiled a poster depicting migrants being escorted through Slovenia by police with the caption “breaking point”.