20 June 2018 (UN Women)* — Right now, nearly 66 million people around the world are displaced from their homes due to conflict, persecution and natural disasters.
Pasca Kole, a refugee woman from South Sudan, with her daughter whom she gave birth to shortly after arriving in Pagirinya Settlement in Uganda. Photo: UN Women/Aidah Nanyonjo
We need to break away from traditional response strategies that are no longer adequate to support the reality facing refugees today. The average length of displacement is now 17 years or more, which means that those affected will spend a significant portion of their lives as refugees.
By UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi*
20 June 2018 (UNHCR)* — Today, World Refugee Day, is a time for solidarity with refugees – and with the communities that welcome them. As conflicts emerge, recur, persist and deepen, 68.5 million people are uprooted around the world. Nine out of 10 are in their own countries or countries next door, and the impact is massive – on refugees themselves, and on the communities that open their doors to them.
HC World Refugee Day video statement
Now, more than ever, taking care of refugees must be a global – and shared – responsibility. It’s time to do things differently.
The effects of conflict-related sexual violence echo across generations, in the form of trauma, stigma, and unwanted pregnancy, on 19 June 2018 said the UN chief, describing the scourge as “a threat to our collective security” and “a stain on our common humanity.”
UNICEF/Donna DeCesare | This 15-year-old was one of Colombia’s child soldiers – some 30 per cent of whom are girls, often sexually abused.
“Children conceived through wartime rape often strugglewith issues of identity and belonging for decades after the guns have fallen silent,” explained Guterres.
Separating children from their families is in no-one’s best interest – the head of UN Children’s Fund UNICEF said on 19 June 2018 – pointing to “heartbreaking” stories of infants who have been reportedly removed from their parents after entering the US from Mexico illegally.
UNHCR/Markel Redondo | Genesis Cerrato, 16, with her one-year-old son. Along with her whole family, she fled Honduras escaping violence in her home country.
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In an appeal to the US regarding its recent policy change cracking down on migration at the border with Mexico, Executive Director Henrietta Fore said in a statement that children who were in need of international protection “have the right to be protected…and be with their families”.
A senior United Nations official on 19 June 2018 urged Israel to reverse course over illegal settlement construction on occupied Palestinian land, and for both parties to return to the negotiating table in pursuit of a lasting peace deal.
UN Photo/Loey Felipe | Nickolay Mladenov, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, briefs the Security Council. (file photo)
“The need to reverse, or at the very least contain the impact of negative trends – especially illegal settlement activity, violence and incitement – is critical not only to preserve hope for a meaningful return to the negotiating table, but also to prevent the escalation of broader regional tensions,” UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Mladenov, told the Security Council.
In response to the withdrawal of the United States on 19 June 2018 from the United Nations body which is designed to promote and protect human rights around the globe, Secretary-General António Guterres said that he would have “much preferred” the US remain.
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UN Photo/Elma Okic | A wide view of the Human Rights Council.
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In a statement issued by Spokesman Stéphane Dujarric, the UN chief said that the Geneva-based Human Rights Council was a part of the UN’s overall “Human Rights architecture”, which “plays a very important role in the promotion and protection of human rights worldwide.”
A woman cradles her child in Kavimvira transit centre in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s South Kivu Province. She is among hundreds of vulnerable Burundian refugees actively seeking safety there. | Source: UN
19 June 2018 (United Nations)* — Every minute 20 people leave everything behind to escape war, persecution or terror.
There are several types of forcibly displaced persons:
Refugees
A refugee is someone who fled his or her home and country owing to “a well-founded fear of persecution because of his/her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion”, according to the United Nations 1951 Refugee Convention. Many refugees are in exile to escape the effects of natural or human-made disasters.
20 June 2018 (United Nations)* — What would you do if you were forced to leave your home?
Secretary-General, then High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres and Humanitarian Envoy for Kuwait Abdullah Al-Matouq (left) visit an Informal Settlement for Syrian refugees near Ghaziye, southern Lebanon. UNHCR / I. Prickett Secretary-General’s Message
Today, more than 68 million people around the world are refugees or internally displaced as a result of conflict or persecution. That is equivalent to the population of the world’s 20th largest country.
Last year, someone was displaced every two seconds. Mostly, in poorer countries.
After commenting on most of the episodes on the first Israeli Prime Ministers in Raviv Drucker’s TV series “The Captains”, I must come back to the one whose episode I have not yet covered: Yitzhak Rabin.
Uri Avnery
Let me state right from the beginning: I liked the man.
He was a man after my own heart: honest, logical, straightforward, to the point.
No nonsense, no small talk. You entered his room, he poured you a straight whisky (seemed to me he detested water), got you seated, and asked a question that compelled you to come straight to the point.
18 June 2018 — A photojournalist has been talking of the “incomprehensible brutality” described to him by Rohingya refugees who are carrying babies after being raped.*
UNICEF/Brian Sokol | Rohingya refugee women survivors of sexual violence are among the most marginalised among more than 800,000 Rohingyas who were forced out of Myanmar into Bangladesh since August 2017.
Brian Sokol travelled with the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, to Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh to interview and photograph Rohingya refugee women who had fled Myanmar over the last year fearing violence and persecution.
