UNIVERSITY students and residents brought parts of Oxford city centre to a standstill this afternoon on a march demanding better treatment for war refugees.

About 50 protesters forged from the iconic Radcliffe Camera at midday, down High Street and through Cornmarket, waving placcards and chanting "safe passage now".

Some onlookers, including Oxford City Councillor John Tanner, applauded as the parade went past; some just laughed, while others looked bemused.

Oxford Mail:

Marcher Hazel Healy, an international human rights journalist who writes for Oxford-based magazine New Internationalist, explained: "We don't think refugees should be dying in order to reach the safety they are entitled to under the 1951 UN Refugee Convention.

"The strange paradox is that when these people actually arive in the UK, 70 per cent of them are granted protection anyway.

"These people can pay for themselves - the ones who get here are already paying huge amounts to smugglers, so it's not a money issue.

"We are just calling for safe, legal pathways for war refugees."

The march, organised by members of Oxford Hub student volunteer organisation, comes as Bashar al-Assad's Syrian Government agreed the first ceasefire in the five-year civil war which has largely been responsible for waves of refugees seeking safety across Europe.

David Ellington, 76, travelled from his home in Woodstock to join the march and "stand up and be counted".

He said: "We are only getting a trickle of refugees coming at the moment, we should be taking far more."

In September Prime Minister and Witney MP David Cameron announced the UK would take 20,000 refugees over the next five years.

Turkey has taken some two million Syrian refugees and Lebanon more than a million since the conflict started.

Oxford's march was one of dozens of "safe passage now" protests taking part across Europe calling for Governments to give refugees more support.