Today, June 20, is World Refugee Day. World Refugee Day was established by the United Nations "to
honor the courage, strength and determination of women, men and
children who are forced to flee their homes under threat of
persecution, conflict and violence." [US World Refugee Day website] Refugees are not something we think about much here in the
US (Angelina Jolie notably excepted) but maybe we should. After all,
currently 45 million people have been forced to leave their homes -
displaced either internally or internationally. This total is a
fourteen year high and was announced by the UN's refugee agency yesterday.
Were they a nation, refugees would form the 30th most populous
country on Earth.
The Syrian Civil War has played a large
part in the recent increase in refugees with more than 1.6 million
refugees created by the crisis so far. Syria now surpasses Somalia
(1.1 million) and Iraq (~750,000) in the number of refugees. Only
Afghanistan has created a higher number of refugees (~2.5 million) than Syria.
[Euronews website]
Although famine plays a role (especially in sub-Saharan Africa), the root cause of the great
majority of this displacement and misery is war. Until war is
renounced by all the nations of the world, until the international arms trade stops, until nations begin to apply serious
diplomacy instead of violence to end conflicts, not much will change.
In the meantime, international efforts are focused on relieving the
suffering of the refugees. But as in so many other areas, the
support is forthcoming in totally inadequate amounts. Regarding the
Syrian refugees, "Jana Mason, a senior advisor with the U.N.’s
refugee agency, testified before the Helsinki Commission last week
that the U.S. and other nations must provide greater financial aid to
host countries that have opened their borders to Syrians." [Time.com]
Scene from the Zaatari refugee camp - now home to more than 100,000 Syrians from The Guardian. It's included in a Guardian post from April: "A city that’s not a city – inside a Syrian refugee camp".
Still some small progress is being
made:
- At the G-8 summit in Northern Ireland earlier this week, leaders pledged to disburse $1.5 billion of humanitarian aid to Syrian refugees and those who are internally displaced." [Time.com]
- With the increasing stability in Somalia, Kenya is pushing for the repatriation of the 600,000+ Somalians now in refugee camps in Kenya. Both Somalia and Kenya now want the international community to provide immediate resources to support the repatriation of refugees living in UN designated camps in Kenya. Without such aid, the effort is doomed to failure. From the Press TV website: "Analysts warn that the government is not in a position to accommodate the massive number of returning refugees from camps. The government is still struggling to relocate IDPs who fled the famine in mid-2011 and the return of refugees is likely to increase the burden on the government."
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