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UN: conflicts worldwide force 100 million people to flee their homes
Geneva, Jun 20 (EFE).- World leaders are unable or unwilling to resolve conflicts that have forced 100 million people to flee their homes worldwide, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said Monday.
“We at UNHCR recently announced the seemingly unimaginable: 100 million people have now been forced to flee their homes,” Grandi said in a message to mark World Refugee Day.
“Yet this year we are again reminded of the work we have ahead of us as world leaders remain unable or unwilling to resolve conflicts,” he added.
Grandi said the war in Ukraine was contributing to the “staggering” figure as well as ongoing conflicts in Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Myanmar, Nigeria, Afghanistan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
“The solutions deficit continues to grow as more people are forced to flee than are able to return home, resettle to a third country, or integrate fully into the country where they have sought safety,” he said.
“In other words, forced displacement is outpacing solutions for those on the run,” Grandi added.
The UNHCR chief urged leaders to work together to “make peace and resolve the plight” for people who have been forced to flee their homes with “lasting and humane solutions.”
“The world has a choice: either come together to reverse the trend of persecution, violence, and war, or accept that the legacy of the 21st century is one of continued forced displacement. We all know which is the right – and smart – thing to do.” EFE
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Right to seek safety
The right to seek safety is predicated on the notion that refugees should be welcome wherever they come from; and wherever they are forced to flee they should be entitled to safety and protection. According to UN estimates, 79.5 million people were forcibly displaced in 2019, 26m of them refugees. However, a large portion of the refugee population is clustered mainly in the developing world: nine out of the top 10 refugee-receiving countries are part of the developing world, with the sole exception of Sweden.
This clearly reflects the uneven distribution of the refugee burden and the hypocrisy of the developed world that are reluctant to help people in need despite their vast resources and their role in creating the circumstances for the displacement of such a large number of families from their homelands. Moreover, in view of the exposed hypocrisy of the West in their contrasting treatment of Ukrainians and Afghans, this year’s theme for World Refugee Day assumes even greater significance.
While Europe has laid out the welcome mat for fleeing Ukrainians, for the Afghans and those from other undesirable countries it has proved to be an impenetrable fortress. Many commentators have noted the stark contrast between the sympathetic media coverage of Ukrainian refugees with the pejorative portrayal of people from other conflict-ridden countries such as Syria and Afghanistan. Political pundits were also quick to detect racial undertones in the ensuing coverage, with Western reporters openly describing Ukrainian refugees as “one of them”.
Refugees should be welcome wherever they come from.
This approach has also reflected in the European countries’ openness and willingness to help displaced Ukrainians. The UK government, for example, is encouraging British families to take in Ukrainian refugees in return for cash, while its home office has introduced a new controversial scheme to repatriate all asylum seekers reaching Britain through the English Channel. Meanwhile, Ukrainian refugees are being welcomed into the EU for three years with no restrictions on work, while the region works to close its borders and tighten its asylum policies reserved for refugees arriving from other regions. Like the UK, some European countries are also actively deporting refugees and asylum seekers, but at the same time welcoming Ukrainian refugees with open arms.
Meanwhile, closer to home, and reflecting the Ukrainian conflict, is our own Afghan refugee crisis. Pakistan has hosted Afghan refugees for over four decades while the Taliban takeover has predictably swelled the number of displaced people arriving at our borders, despite the official policy of fencing the Durand Line and not welcoming new refugees from Afghanistan. However, despite this, open spaces in Islamabad are increasingly being occupied by refugees from Afghanistan. The West, initially interested in taking in a limited number of Afghan refugees, appears to have simply moved on to the Ukrainian refugee crisis where it has diverted the bulk of its funding and resources. While a large portion of the displaced Ukrainians are beginning to return to their country, this option, sadly, is not even available to a huge section of refugees stuck in the developing world.
Needless to say, these two-faced policies run counter to the spirit of this year’s Refugee Day’s key message of non-discriminatory and rights-based equal treatment of all refugees wherever they come from and wherever they flee from persecution or conflict. The right of refugees to access safe and protected spaces where they can thrive and flourish is at the heart of refugees’ rights and this year’s theme of allowing displaced people to seek safe pastures.
The Ukrainian crisis further reinforces the importance of non-discriminatory, fair and balanced asylum and immigration policies that treat all refugees equally irrespective of where they come from, what the pigment of their skin is, or what hierarchy of conflict they are fleeing from. Not just governments, though, the public too needs to rally behind the message of the right of equal access to safety for all to give a chance to people escaping hardship to thrive in their adopted homes.
The writer is the author of Patient Pakistan: Reforming and Fixing Healthcare for All in the 21st Century, and has worked on refugee projects in Lebanon, Syria and Greece.
drarifazad@gmail.com
Twitter @arifazad5
Published in Dawn,
by Nita Bhalla | @nitabhalla | Thomson Reuters Foundation
Monday, 20 June 2022
The UK’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is not the first of its kind. From Israel to Australia, several countries have used offshoring policies for refugees and migrants
Britain is pressing ahead with a policy to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda despite a last-minute intervention by the European Court of Human Rights that stopped the first plane from departing for the East African nation last week.
Home Secretary (interior minister) Priti Patel said preparations for more flights had already began, adding that legal challenges and mounting criticism would not deter the government from pursuing its strategy.
The U.N. refugee chief has called the policy "catastrophic", the leadership of the Church of England denounced it as "immoral", and media reports have said Prince Charles, the heir to the throne, has privately described the plan as "appalling".
Despite outrage over the plan, Britain is not the first country to send asylum seekers overseas. On World Refugee Day, here are some countries that have taken a similar approach:
AUSTRALIA
Introduced in 2001, Australia's offshoring asylum programme specifically targets migrants arriving in Australian waters by boat, and is aimed at discouraging refugees from making dangerous ocean crossings and stopping people smuggling.
Asylum seekers are transferred to offshore detention centres in Papua New Guinea's Manus Island and the South Pacific island nation of Nauru for their claims to be processed.
The policy - known as the "Pacific Solution" - was dismantled in 2008, but it was revived in 2012 and became more restrictive in 2013, when the government announced that people arriving by boat would be denied resettlement, even if recognised as refugees.
Since 2012, more than 4,000 asylum seekers, including children, have been sent to detention centres in Manus and Nauru for processing. Many have waited more than five years for their asylum claims to be processed, according to the Refugee Council of Australia, an NGO.
The offshoring asylum policy has been strongly criticised by the United Nations and aid groups who cite harsh conditions in the centres including abuse by guards and self-harm and depression among detainees.
Fourteen people have died in the island camps, including through suicide and a lack of proper medical care, according to the Human Rights Law Centre. There have also been cases of detainees being killed during protests over camp conditions or in attacks by local people.
Australia closed the facility on Manus Island last year after Papua New Guinea's Supreme Court ruled it was illegal, but about 105 people still remain in Papua New Guinea. A further 112 asylum seekers are currently living within the Nauruan community, according to the refugee council.
ISRAEL
In 2014, Israel introduced a now-defunct policy to send those rejected for asylum and illegal immigrants - mainly from Sudan and Eritrea - to Rwanda and Uganda for third-country resettlement.
They were given the choice of either being deported back to their country of origin or accepting a payment of $3,500 and a plane ticket to either Uganda or Rwanda, with any who stayed in Israel facing jail.
Israel has said about 20,000 people either returned home or went to one of the East African countries under the policy, which human rights groups criticised for sending refugees to countries where there were no guarantees over their safety.
Research conducted by the University of Oxford and the International Refugee Rights Initiative found that many deported to Rwanda and Uganda had their travel documents taken away on arrival and were held in hotels guarded by armed men. Most escaped and paid people smugglers to make the dangerous journey to Europe.
Amid mounting international and domestic criticism, the Israeli programme was scrapped in 2019 following its suspension by the country's Supreme Court.
EUROPEAN UNION
The European Union indirectly supports offshore asylum programmes as part of efforts to stop refugees coming across the Mediterranean.
The bloc has paid Turkey billions of dollars to keep refugees from reaching Greece and has funded the Libyan Coast Guard, which pushes migrant boats bound for Europe back to North Africa. It is also helping to fund U.N.-run centres in Niger and Rwanda to process asylum seekers.
Under a U.N. programme called the Emergency Transit Mechanism, more than 3,000 people from Libyan detention centres who were heading for Europe have been transferred to Niger.
A similar scheme sending asylum seekers from Libya to Rwanda began in 2019. https://news.trust.org/item/20190910094312-4h5pn/
Critics have accused the EU of seeking to curb the number of refugees reaching its shores by outsourcing the crisis to poor African nations.
Despite its criticism of Britain, the United Nations says the arrangement is reasonable because it protects migrants from torture, sexual violence, and indefinite detention in Libya.
Asylum seekers in Rwanda have reported that their lives are better than in Libya's detention centres, but they do not want to stay in Rwanda and ultimately wish to resettle in Europe.
DENMARK
Denmark, which has introduced increasingly harsh immigration policies over the last decade, passed a law in 2021 allowing refugees to be moved to asylum centres in a third country for claims to be processed. It is currently in talks with Rwanda.
Refugee groups said the new law was irresponsible and showed a lack of solidarity with people in need, and the measure was also criticised by the United Nations and the European Commission.
Danish government officials have said a deal with Rwanda would "ensure a more dignified approach than the criminal network of human traffickers that characterises migration across the Mediterranean today".
The EU Commission has said relocating refugees outside Europe is "not possible" under current EU rules, but Denmark is exempt from some EU regulations, including asylum standards, due to an opt-out.
Related stories:
In Pakistan, Afghan refugees face hardship and a frosty reception
Fleeing Ukraine war, African students scramble to study in Europe
OPINION: It's time for answers for Africa's 'climate refugees'
(Reporting by Nita Bhalla @nitabhalla; Editing by Helen Popper; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers the lives of people around the world who struggle to live freely or fairly. Visit http://news.trust.org)
On World Refugee Day, Ukraine
is but the tip of an iceberg
The United Nations says more than 100 million people are currently displaced as World Refugee Day is observed. The day has seen protests, cultural events and pleas for assistance.
UNICEF says more than 36.5 million children are among those people currently displaced worldwide
According to the United Nations Refugee Agency UNHCR, more than 100 million men, women and children are currently displaced as countries mark World Refugee Day this June 20. The day is being observed in a variety locations around the globe.
In many places, events include cultural performances and exhibitions, as well as celebrity visits to refugee centers to draw attention to the plight of those forced to flee their homes due to violence and persecution.
Speaking with DW, UNHCR Spokesman Matthew Saltmarsh said, "Our overriding message for this World Refugee Day ... is that everyone has the right to claim asylum no matter where they are, no matter what they do, no matter how they travel or move."
Saltmarsh addressed the current refugee crisis in Ukraine, saying, "There has been a huge outpouring of compassion and support for Ukrainian refugees ... That's been really positive and we welcome that."
Nevertheless, Saltmarsh warned that a concentration of efforts focused on Ukrainian refugees could sap resources needed for refugee crises in other regions around the world, citing Africa, the Middle East, and Central and South America.
Though he noted broad support in Europe for the roughly 8.3 million Ukrainians that have been forced to flee their country since it was invaded by neighboring Russia on February 24, he voiced concern that such support could wane as the conflict drags on.
As dire as the situation for Ukrainian refugees is, they have been more favorably welcomed in Europe than other groups, such as those from Syria, Afghanistan and Africa. Globally, the UNHCR spokesman said, "We've seen examples in the past in Europe, but also in other regions, of refugees not being given that access to asylum."
Saltmarsh told DW that governments need to do more to ensure that paths to asylum remain open.
Still, as many focused on the current situation in Ukraine, other refugee groups remain in grave danger, trapped in unresolved situations with little hope of being able to return to their homes.
More than 1 million ethnic Rohingya were forced to flee to Bangladesh in
2017 due to violent persecution in Myanmar
Rohingya protests in Bangladesh
In refugee camps around Bangladesh, thousands of Rohingya Muslim protesters demanded repatriation to their Myanmar homeland with recognition of their ethnicity and full citizenship rights. More than 1 million Rohingya were forced to flee their homes after suffering violent attacks in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.
Unknown numbers of Rohingya were tortured and killed during the 2017 ethnic violence that left most of their homes in Myanmar's northern Rakhine state destroyed.
Protests were held in 29 of Bangladesh's 34 squalid refugee camps. "As survivors of genocide in Myanmar, we are thankful to Bangladesh for sheltering us. Now, we want to return to our homeland, we don't want to live as refugees," said Rohingya community leader Noor Muhammad as he addressed fellow refugees at the Kutupalong Camp.
Lebanon has struggled to cope with massive numbers of Syrian refugees while
suffering the burden of economic crisis
Syrian refugees face expulsion from Lebanon
The precarious fate of refugees in Lebanon was also highlighted Monday, as Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said his country was prepared to expel Syrian refugees if they were not repatriated.
"Eleven years after the start of the Syrian crisis, Lebanon no longer has the capacity to bear this burden, especially under the current circumstances," Mikati said. "I call on the international community to work with Lebanon to secure the return of Syrian refugees to their country, or else Lebanon will ... work to get Syrians out through legal means and the firm application of Lebanese law."
Lebanon, which is experiencing a devastating and prolonged economic crisis, has the highest proportion of refugees to population in the world, with Syrians currently making up nearly a quarter of the country's 6 million residents.
Rights groups have voiced grave concern over plans to send Syrians back to their home country, which remains locked in an unending civil war, saying refugees face potential arrest, torture and killing should they return.
Beirut on Monday requested $3.2 billion (€3 billion) in UN aid to help it deal with the years-long Syrian refugee crisis.
UK still plans to deport asylum-seekers despite ECHR intervention
The United Kingdom on Monday announced its intention to carry through with a controversial plan to deport asylum-seekers in the country to Rwanda in East Africa.
Home Secretary Priti Patel said that legal challenges, such as a last-minute European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) injunction, would not deter the UK from its intended plan — which the UNHCR has called "catastrophic."
The UK joins countries such as Australia and Denmark in its offshoring of refugees. Israel had a similar scheme in which it expelled some 20,000 mainly Sudanese and Eritrean refugees between 2014 and 2019, when the program was discontinued.
The EU is more discreet in keeping refugees arriving from Africa at bay, preferring to forge contracts with countries such as Turkey and Libya to keep refugees in the Mediterranean from reaching its shores while at the same time helping finance UN refugee centers on the African continent.
The Elders visit to Nguenyyiel Refugee Camp, Ethiopia in 2019.
This World Refugee Day, The Elders call on governments to uphold the universal right to seek safety and for solidarity with refugees to mean solidarity with every person who has been forcibly displaced by conflict or persecution.
This year, the number of people forced to leave their home reached a record 100 million. Under the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and international law, every person has a right to seek safety. Yet, too often, leaders ignore their international responsibilities and people on the move are met with hostility.
The Elders call on global leaders to ensure that every person forced to flee their home receives solidarity, compassion and a dignified reception.
Ban Ki-moon, Deputy Chair of The Elders and former Secretary-General of the UN, says:
"It is sobering that the number of people forcibly displaced by conflict or persecution has reached a record 100 million.
This World Refugee Day, states should reaffirm their commitment to the universal right to seek asylum and should treat all asylum-seekers with compassion and dignity. Governments welcoming Ukrainian refugees while at the same time outsourcing their international asylum obligations sets a shameful precedent."
Zeid Raad al Hussein, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, says:
"The remarkable global support for people fleeing Ukraine shows what is possible when the international community has the political will to act.
The EU has rightly given Ukrainians immediate temporary protection and the right to live, work and travel to any Member State of the EU for up to three years. Rich nations should broaden this integration approach to all refugees, wherever they are from.
Giving refugees the right to work, access education, and freedom of movement allows them to live independently and to contribute to the communities they live in."
Hina Jilani, lawyer and human rights advocate, says:
"This World Refugee Day, we need urgent measures to protect all those refugees who are suffering outside of the media spotlight.
During this time of global support for Ukraine, solidarity with refugees must not end there: governments must prioritise the finance and the mechanisms needed to protect every person who has been forcibly displaced. This includes expanding global resettlement commitments, and urgently fulfilling pledges to resettle Afghans seeking protection from the Taliban."
Share this: Cox's Bazar
Listening to people with lived-experience of forced migration plays an essential role in developing the services and protection needed for refugees, and The Elders believe that the voices of refugees and asylum-seekers must be centered in all discussions about migration.
Anowar, a Rohingya refugee currently living in Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, shares his message for World Refugee Day on why inclusion of all refugee voices is important:
"Since 2017, I have lived in Rohingya refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, but my home is in Rakhine state, Myanmar. I was forced to leave because of the military “Clearance Operations”. They killed our loved ones, burnt down our houses, confiscated our lands and looted our properties. We came here to save our lives.
On World Refugee Day, I want to say that it is important to include refugee communities in discussions about refugee issues: it is the sufferer who understands the suffering well. I must tell you that it is crucial to include the Rohingya in the international justice process to understand what justice means to them. I would like to see more Rohingya involved in international justice. International justice institutions should empower and work with Rohingya.
My message to the world is to please support us until we have our rights, justice, and are able to return to our motherland with our nationality and citizenship. Thank you."
Find out more about The Elders' work on Refugees and Migration.
Several rooms and the temple's main prayer hall were heavily damaged Photo: AFP / Ahmad SAHEL ARMAN
