GENEVA () -- Representatives of former Soviet republics and their ethnic minorities opened a two-day meeting Thursday to try to stem the mass migration that could destabilize the entire region.


Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, about 9 million people have left their homes in former Soviet republics for other regions. Migration experts fear the exodus could grow further because an estimated 60 million people still live outside their ethnic homelands.


"These vast regions have still not attained the stability which they seek; and many population groups have still not found a place in which they can hope to settle permanently and enjoy firm legal protection,'' UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali said in an opening speech to the conference, organized by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Organization for Migration and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.