UNITED NATIONS (AFP) -- The UN launched a campaign on World Refugee Day to raise funds so the world's nine million refugee children can study and have places and resources for play.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) campaign, called ninemillion.org and unveiled in Washington, plans to allocate two-thirds of private and company donations to finance education projects in refugee camps.

The remaining money will be earmarked for the Canadian humanitarian organization "Right to Play," which promotes the development of refugee children -- particularly girls -- through play and sports. "Children in refugee camps not only need survival," said U.S. Olympics speed skating champion Joey Cheek, who donated his prizes to "Right to Play."

"They need education, sports, play, all the things that help all of us grow," said Cheek, speaking at a Washington press conference.

The group said on its Internet pledge site that it had registered 20.8 million refugees and people in need of protection around the world, 9.3 million of them children.

The UNHCR head, Antonio Guterres, was in Liberia on Tuesday, where he slammed the international community for failing to adequately help countries emerging from conflict situations.

"There is one thing the international community does not know how to do properly, that is to support transition after the conflict, or a transition after a democratic system is established," Guterres said. He said while western donors are good in releasing urgent humanitarian aid, "what the international community has not been able to do is to establish a linkage between the two."

In Rome, the UNHCR and two leading non-governmental organizations -- Doctors without Borders and Amnesty International -- called on Italy to enact basic legislation to protect asylum-seekers and refugees.

Italy has some 20,000 refugees on its soil, while Germany has 700,000, Britain 293,000, and France and the Netherlands between 100,000 and 150,000.

And Canada's minister of citizenship and immigration, Monte Solberg, announced it will take in 810 ethnic Karen refugees from Myanmar who have been living in border camps in Thailand.

There are currently 140,000 refugees from Myanmar living in nine border camps in Thailand, many of whom have been there for up to 20 years. They represent the largest group of refugees in Southeast Asia.

In Bogota, the local UNHCR office announced that some 60,000 Colombians are living as refugees in places like Ecuador, Venezuela and the United States.

Colombia and Iraq are the countries with the highest number of internally displaced people -- up to 2.5 million in Colombia and some 1.6 million in Iraq, according to the UNHCR.