Some facts and figures…

Every day 44,000 people are forced to flee their homes because of conflict or persecution

68.5 million people around the world (more than the population of the UK) are displaced

Each day in 2018, six people died trying to cross the Mediterranean

57% of refugees worldwide are from just three countries — South Sudan (at least 2 million displaced as a result of the Civil War which began in 2013), Afghanistan (2.6 million refugees, 95% of whom are hosted in Iran and Pakistan) and Syria (6.3 million have fled the conflict. Around 3.5 million are hosted in Turkey).

At least 700 thousand Rohingya refugees have fled Myanmar since 2017

2020 World Refugee Day Statement by UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi:

We are marking this year’s World Refugee Day against a backdrop of a dramatic global crisis. Not only are record numbers of people forced to flee their homes, but the world is grappling with COVID-19, a disease that is still very much affecting us all. What started as a health crisis has expanded, and today many of the most vulnerable – refugees and the displaced amongst them – face a pandemic of poverty.

Yet, throughout this challenging time, we have also seen a connectedness that transcends borders. Ordinary people have stepped up to help. Host communities – especially those in low- and middle-income countries where nearly 90 percent of the world’s refugees live – have continued to demonstrate a remarkable welcome.

And refugees themselves are also contributing in significant ways, despite often living in extremely vulnerable conditions. They are, for example, volunteering as front line health workers in Colombia and the United Kingdom; making soap for distribution in Lebanon and Niger; sewing masks and protective gear in Iran; helping construct isolation centres in Bangladesh; and elsewhere around the world, they are contributing time to help the needy in their host communities.

As we battle COVID-19, I draw inspiration from the resilience refugees have shown in overcoming their own crisis of displacement and dispossession; their separation from home and family; and their determination to improve their own and others’ lives, despite these and other hardships.

On World Refugee Day, I salute and celebrate the fortitude of refugees and displaced people around the world. I also pay tribute to the communities that shelter them and that have demonstrated the universally shared values and principles of compassion and humanity. They have sometimes hosted and protected refugees for years or even generations, and continuing to uphold these values in a time of pandemic is a powerful message of hope and solidarity.

UNHCR is no stranger to challenges. For over 70 years we have been on the frontlines of countless emergencies. Yet this global pandemic is of an entirely new magnitude. Our priority has been and will be, to stay and deliver for the refugees, internally displaced and stateless people we are mandated to protect. But we can’t do it alone.

Mobilizing help and support to prepare and respond to the pandemic has been vital in the past months. And we have seen how countries and communities around the world have included refugees in their own national health responses. It is now equally critical to secure refugees’ and displaced persons’ inclusion in the much-needed socio-economic response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Global Compact on Refugees has laid a strong foundation for this response. We have already seen it in action as bilateral donors, international financial institutions, and the private sector have responded to this crisis with unprecedented levels to support refugees through host governments. Such support must continue and be redoubled so that they have the resources necessary to include refugees and displaced people and ensure that economic and social disparities do not lead to rifts within and between communities. More must also be invested in countries of origin to make the return of refugees a viable option.

On this World Refugee Day, I call for greater global solidarity and action to include and support refugees, internally displaced and stateless people as well as their hosts.

Whoever you are. No matter where you come from. Every one of us can make a difference.

Every action truly counts.

https://reliefweb.int/report/world/2020-world-refugee-day-statement-un-high-commissioner-refugees-filippo-grandi

Every refugee represents a human tragedy. Each one has a story – of fear, of trauma, of desperation, of determination. This poem by Warsan Shire reminds us of that truth.

Home
no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well

your neighbors running faster than you
breath bloody in their throats
the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory
is holding a gun bigger than his body
you only leave home
when home won’t let you stay.

no one leaves home unless home chases you
fire under feet
hot blood in your belly
it’s not something you ever thought of doing
until the blade burnt threats into
your neck
and even then you carried the anthem under
your breath
only tearing up your passport in an airport toilet
sobbing as each mouthful of paper
made it clear that you wouldn’t be going back.

you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land
no one burns their palms
under trains
beneath carriages
no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled
means something more than journey.
no one crawls under fences
no one wants to be beaten
pitied

no one chooses refugee camps
or strip searches where your
body is left aching
or prison,
because prison is safer
than a city of fire
and one prison guard
in the night
is better than a truckload
of men who look like your father
no one could take it
no one could stomach it
no one skin would be tough enough

the
go home blacks
refugees
dirty immigrants
asylum seekers
sucking our country dry
niggers with their hands out
they smell strange
savage
messed up their country and now they want
to mess ours up
how do the words
the dirty looks
roll off your backs
maybe because the blow is softer
than a limb torn off

or the words are more tender
than fourteen men between
your legs
or the insults are easier
to swallow
than rubble
than bone
than your child body
in pieces.
i want to go home,
but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home told you
to quicken your legs
leave your clothes behind
crawl through the desert
wade through the oceans
drown
save
be hunger
beg
forget pride
your survival is more important

no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear
saying-
leave,
run away from me now
i dont know what i’ve become
but i know that anywhere
is safer than here 

Warsan Shire, “Home,” Seekershub.org, September 2, 2015

My earlier post looked at the immense challenges faced by asylum seekers during the pandemic. It would be wrong to leave it there. In communities across the UK, refugees are stepping forward to help, to offer their expertise and energy.

Four years ago I wrote a piece for Refugee Week, talking about what it is that refugees hope for when they arrive here.

We’d want to have a place where we can shut our door and hang up our hats, and sleep without fear, and be with the people we love.  We’d want the chance to work, to use our skills to earn enough to provide for ourselves and the people we love, to prepare healthy meals, to buy new shoes for the children as they grow, to be warm enough in winter.  We’d want the chance to learn, new languages and new skills, and we’d want our children to go to school and learn all that they need to make their way in the world, and to make friends and play.

We’d want to become part of a community.  Paying our way, making a contribution, chatting to our neighbours, free of the threat that there will be a knock on the door early one morning and we’ll be sent away, back where we came from, or just away, to anywhere that’s not here.

The Metro highlighted other examples. Majeda Khoury, a refugee from Syria, has used her catering company, The Syrian Sunflower, to provide at least 400 meals for struggling families during lockdown.

After the pandemic broke out, Majeda, 47, started cooking and dropping off meals to the residents of Ealing on her bike. The cook was forced to take two months off after falling ill with coronavirus but as soon as she was well again, she was back in the kitchen preparing 200 meals for families in need during Ramadan. She told Metro.co.uk: ‘I believe that volunteer work is very important. Especially in times like this, I feel a responsibility to my community.’

https://metro.co.uk/2020/06/16/how-refugees-are-leading-way-helping-uk-communities-pandemic-12855071/?ito=cbshare&fbclid=IwAR2XzN7S7OJJJO1dwkMLX3w2_44ne-LAcVqftJEFjGtu_Uaj86HklwvuhUw

Mazen Salmou, also from Syria,

Maz may have only been living in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, for less than two years, but in that short space of time he has already become a cherished member of the community. When the pandemic broke out, the 40-year-old, originally from Damascus, Syria, couldn’t sit back and watch people struggle. So, he decided to sign up as a volunteer with Bromsgrove Community Support Group, which provides essential help to the elderly and those shielding. Every day of the week, the broadcast journalist has been on his bike delivering pharmacy prescriptions and shopping to the doorsteps of vulnerable locals. Maz estimates he has dropped off essentials to around 300 households so far. He has also been volunteering with a local support helpline listening to residents who are struggling with their mental health during lockdown.

Owner of Nigerian catering company Nana Nokki, Chineze has provided at least 200 healthy meals for struggling families during lockdown, and Maria Igwebuike, owner of lingerie brand Maria Callisto has put her seamstress skills to use, making face masks with a vintage twist. She sells her masks online, with a portion of funds going to charity.

Refugees are also on the frontline. Like Mohamad Kajouj, from Syria.

His expertise has been vital treating Covid-19 patients at York Hospital’s A&E ward – often working two weeks in a row when colleagues have fallen ill. But the exhausting, traumatic and challenging work has not fazed the doctor, who was forced to flee his war-torn home country and seek asylum in the UK.

https://metro.co.uk/2020/06/15/doctors-journey-warzone-nhs-prepared-trauma-coronavirus-wards-12853144/

Having worked in a warzone, Mohamad was prepared for the traumas of the Covid-19 ward. But when he arrived here, after time in a refugee camp and a perilous journey, he wasn’t initially able to put his medical training and experience to use. He focused on learning English to the necessary standard, so that he could pass his British medical training, and once he had requalified he began work at Salford Royal Hospital before moving to Yorkwhere he

But determined to get back to his work, Mohamad made learning English his ‘full-time job’ so he could pass his British medical training and join the NHS as soon as he could.  And the hard work paid off. In just seven months Mohamad passed his advanced English test – a process so difficult it often takes at least two years – and inspired other refugees at Reache with his determination. He regained his confidence, made friends, re-qualified and went on to work at Salford Royal Hospital for the next two years, before moving to York.

Worldwide, many other medics are desperate to help, but unable to requalify to work in their new homes.

Refugees and immigrants trained in medicine represent a large untapped pool of talent in many countries with time-consuming or expensive re-certification procedures and regulations. Many arriving in a new country must find work right away to survive and cannot afford to repeat education and training. Some try but cannot land residencies – which are required by all states in the US – or clinical experience.

The result is that hundreds of thousands of skilled medical professionals around the world are working in jobs that have nothing to do with their training – often low level jobs that require barely more than a high school degree. In the United States alone, as many as 263,000 immigrants and refugees with health-related degrees are unemployed or under-employed, according to the Migration Policy Institute think-tank.

https://www.unhcr.org/uk/news/stories/2020/5/5ebd461d4/coronavirus-spreads-refugee-doctors-want-join-fight.html

Perhaps we can hope that the urgent need for medically trained staff will lead more governments to ease the path to requalification. And even that

now that refugees and immigrants who trained overseas are risking their lives, the countries they are supporting will support them – even after the emergency ends.

https://www.unhcr.org/uk/news/stories/2020/5/5ebd461d4/coronavirus-spreads-refugee-doctors-want-join-fight.html

A year on from Refugee Week 2019 and our world is unrecognisable. We’ve become accustomed to doing the Corona swerve to ensure a 2m distance between us and others, on the pavement or in the supermarket. Many of us wear face masks, either because it’s required by our governments or because we feel they will protect us or (more realistically) others from us. We’ve all seen the photographs of landmarks around the world, usually teeming with people but now still and empty. Our own streets have been quieter, our air clearer. We become accustomed to hearing the daily death toll, to clapping for the people who are risking their lives to keep us safe, fed and protected.

We’ve adjusted to change that would have seemed unimaginable this time last year, and to tragedy that we could not have envisaged, whether or not it has come close to us and the people we love.

In this new world we have felt at times that we are ‘all in the same boat’, wherever and whoever we are. But it’s truer to say that whilst we are all in the same storm, some of us are in sturdier crafts than others. Those who had safe homes, a robust health service, family support and secure income when the storm hit can hunker down and get through it. Those who have nothing, nowhere and no one will perish. Of course, the former group may perish too, if they become seriously ill, they may fall into one of the risk groups (based on age, gender, ethnicity and underlying health conditions). But many in the second group will fall into the risk categories too, and so are still more likely to die. We say that the virus does not discriminate, and of course it doesn’t, in the sense of actively choosing who to infect. But its effects, and the severity of the effects, are inevitably worse in those who are already vulnerable, and those who have the least control over their circumstances.

The ‘stay at home, stay safe’ message must sound bitter to so many, whose homes were not safe, whose journey from home was to protect themselves and their children from danger.

How do you socially isolate in an overcrowded refugee camp? How do you protect yourself if you are in a detention centre, awaiting deportation? How do you escape the horrors of war, terrorist attacks, desperate poverty and starvation, when even the most porous borders, even the most welcoming countries, are closed? And, if your instinct is to flee a place of danger, how do you ensure you don’t take the plague with you?

This Refugee Week I will try to gather some stories about how refugees and asylum seekers worldwide are living through these perilous plague times. Because there are still wars, there is still famine, there are still terrorist attacks, there are still regimes that oppress on the basis of ethnic origin, religion, sexual orientation and political views. There are still refugees.