World Refugee Day

Photo c/o unhcr.org

Today is their day.  According to the United Nations High Commissioner for refugees (UNHCR), we are now witnessing the highest levels of displacement on record.  There are around 65.6 million people around the planet who have been forced to leave their home.  22.5 million of them are refugees, half of which are under 18 years old.  Who is a refugee?  A refugee is someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war and violence.  In the past, the refugees came mostly from Europe: Poles, Germans, Jews, Latvians.  These were people fleeing from Russia and Nazi Germany.

The present day refugees are doing the reverse: they are now fleeing Syria, Libya, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Iraq, Turkey, Iran and other parts of the Middle East to get into Europe.  We also see refugees coming from parts of Africa like Chad, Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, as well as those coming from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Myanmar.

They endure hardships and all kinds of danger just to seek a better place, a peaceful and welcoming place for their love ones.  Theirs is a long and arduous journey, one gets to be uprooted from their land of birth, to be thrown into a future that seems unfathomable and unforeseen.  My only wish is that they shall find the peace and love they have been searching for, after all these years.