“A particular category of war victim is formed by refugees, forced by combat to flee the places where they habitually live and to seek refuge in foreign countries. The Church is close to them not only with her pastoral presence and material support, but also with her commitment to defend their human dignity: ‘Concern for refugees must lead us to reaffirm and highlight universally recognized human rights, and to ask that the effective recognition of these rights be guaranteed to refugees.’”

Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, #505

On 20 June, we remember the indomitable spirit and courage of the world's refugees, giving them the encouragement, support and respect they deserve.

Every refugee story is different, every loss is a personal one. But around the world different crises affect different groups. Some conflicts are almost resolved. Others are new, with fresh refugee problems. And still others are shadowy, long-running guerrilla wars whose victims are often the ordinary people the revolutionaries claim to represent.

Numbers at a Glance

• In 2003, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reported that the number of uprooted persons in the world was 20.6 million. They included 10.4 million refugees (51%), 1.0 million asylum seekers (5%), 2.4 million returned refugees (12%), 5.8 million internally displaced persons (28%) and 951,000 others of concern (4%).

• Asia hosted nearly half of all the uprooted persons, (9.4 million people or 46%), followed by 4.6 million from Africa (22%), 4.4 million from Europe (21%), 1 million each from North America and Latin America (10%), and 69,200 from Oceania (0.3%).

• The number of uprooted persons (20.6 million) reflected a fall in the number of new refugees, but an equally large increase in the number of people needing continued assistance once they returned home and began rebuilding their lives, including nearly 2 million Afghans returning from neighboring Pakistan and Iran.

• Major refugee hosting countries are: Iran (estimate: 1.3 million), Pakistan (estimate: 1.2 million), Germany (980,000), Tanzania (690,000), United States (485,000), Serbia and Montenegro (350,000), Democratic Republic of Congo (330,000), Sudan (330,000), China (300,000) and Armenia (250,000).

 

Case Studies

Afghanistan - In 1994 the Taliban came to power and soon controlled 80 per cent of the country. Against this turbulent backdrop, worsened by the U.S. invasion in 2001, millions of Afghans left their homes, seeking refuge both within Afghanistan and in neighboring countries and also in India, Russia, Europe, North America, and Australia. Since fighting decreased, 2 million Afghans have since returned to their homeland - often to find their former livelihoods destroyed, lands littered with landmines, and scarce employment in urban centers. In 2005, job prospects in Afghanistan are still slowly improving, and poverty remains a real problem in many rural areas. 

Rwanda - Rwanda has been the epicenter of regional violence since gaining independence. In 1993, after the death of the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi in a plane crash, Hutu extremists rose up and massacred almost a million Tutsis and Hutu moderates. The Rwandan Patriotic Forces (RPF) gained power, and 2 million of Hutu fled and occupied camps in the neighboring countries. Later about 1.4 million refugees returned to Rwanda as the camps were dismantled or destroyed, and some 200,000 Rwandan people are estimated to have perished or executed during the operation. In 2005, since a Rwandan rebel group announced recently that it would disarm and go home peacefully, around 1,300 refugees volunteered to return to Rwanda from eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Balkans - When Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence in March 1992, the government of Serbia, led by President Slobodan Milosevic, vowed to fight on behalf of the Serb minority population living there. By the end of April 1992, 95 per cent of the Muslim and Croat populations in the major towns and cities of eastern Bosnia had been forced from their homes, and Sarajevo was under daily bombing. By mid-June, Serb forces controlled two-thirds of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and approximately one million people had fled their homes. Bosnian Croat forces, backed by Croatia, attempted to create an ethnically pure swathe of territory adjoining Croatia. By the time the war ended in December 1995, over half the 4.4 million people of Bosnia and Herzegovina were displaced. 700,000 had become refugees in Western Europe. At the end of 1999, some 800,000 people in Bosnia and Herzegovina remained displaced and unable to return to their former homes. In February 2005, the signing of a declaration on refugee return in South Eastern Europe confirmed the commitment of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia and Montenegro to create adequate conditions to enable refugee return in the region and to support refugees who choose to stay in their host countries.