The plight of refugees

When it comes to embracing refugees from different corners of the globe, rich and powerful seem to shy away

Today nearly 60 million men, women and children are said to be displaced inside and outside of their countries. That is the largest number the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has ever counted. The Middle East is in bloody throes today, throwing up in the process an estimated 11 million refugees from almost all corners of the region. Around four million refugees have already fled Syria, settling in camps in Jordan, Turkey and Egypt. Syria, Iraq and Burundi are just examples of a growing number of humanitarian crises that have forced millions to flee their homes. More than 4.5 million were internally displaced in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2014.

Most refugees are said to remain in exile for an average of 17 years. Some are born and grow up in camps and never get to leave them. Most alarmingly, over half the world’s refugees are children.In Kenya, 350,000 mainly Somali refugees live in camps. There are still about three million Afghan refugees in Pakistan. A few hundred thousand Biharis who call themselves Pakistanis live in Bangladesh camps. And thousands of Rohingya refugees shuttle between Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Most of the host countries tend to be lower and middle-income states in the developing world and shelter the largest number of refugees. States which are close to areas in crises are called upon to host the majority of the world’s refugees. At the start of 2011, developing countries hosted 80 per cent of the 10.5 million refugees under the UNHCR’s mandate. More than half of the 20 countries with the most refugees in relation to Gross Domestic Product were least-developed countries.

The costs of hosting refugee populations generally fall into three categories: costs to the state administration; costs to the economy, environment and infrastructure; and costs for the host state in terms of its security, social fabric and relationships with other states. In some cases, the populations the aid agencies seek to protect in refugee camps also include combatants or war criminals. Indeed, in some cases camps do contain the so-called ‘refugee warriors’, who may seek to continue fighting opposition forces in their home or host countries (as in the case of Rwandans in the Democratic Republic of the Congo).

Global challenges need to be managed in a way that distributes costs and burdens fairly. This becomes all the more crucial when a few states host the majority of the world’s refugees due largely to their geographic proximity to conflict-affected states. In such a situation, the rich and powerful countries along with organisations like the UNHCR, countries of origin and host countries all need to join hands to find solutions for this complex problem. Host countries must act responsibly to protect the rights of all people in their territories. They need to fulfil their obligations to refugees, displaced people and stateless people. In this endeavour the developed world in particular needs to support host states to shoulder their responsibilities effectively, through financial support, technical support, resettlement places, engagement in governance and other contributions. Even civil society organisations, communities and relevant individuals need to make their contributions more meaningful for the alleviation of the plight of refugee populations.

However, the resources the world is making available for such a gigantic task appears no more than a trickle. With huge shortages of funding and wide gaps in the global regime for protecting victims of war, many people in need of compassion, aid and refuge are on the verge of being abandoned. For an age of unprecedented mass displacement, the world needs an unprecedented humanitarian response and a renewed global commitment to tolerance and protection of people fleeing conflict and persecution. There is much emphasis today on globalisation and the world has become increasingly internationalised. However, when it comes to embracing refugees from different corners of the globe, the rich and the powerful of the world seem to shy away from their international obligations and display an utter lack of empathy for the suffering of millions. There has been little effort to streamline the logistics of migration.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 21^st, 2015.

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