Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel was honored the Nansen Refugee Award for welcoming more than 1.2 million refugees and asylum seekers under threat of violence and persecution during the refugee crisis in 2015 and 2016. Speaking at the awards ceremony in Geneva, Switzerland, Merkel said: “In my view, we owe this honor primarily to the numerous people who started working at that time and to whom we have to thank for managing the situation and succeeding.”

Merkel said that Turkey hosts a large number of refugees who do not want to go far from their country and said, “Turkey has hosted 3.8 million refugees from the Middle East.” Merkel added that Turkey has undertaken a greater burden than Germany in the refugee crisis, and that sustainable solutions must be found so that refugees can return to their countries safely.