When the Agency began operations in , it was responding to the needs of about , Palestine refugees. UNRWA has not changed and cannot change its mandate. That is the responsibility of UN Member States. Political solutions are difficult, which is why there remain, globally, a number of protracted refugee situations whereby successive generations continue to be recognized as refugees.
Under international law and the principle of family unity, the children of refugees and their descendants are also considered refugees until a durable solution is found. Both UNRWA and UNHCR recognize descendants as refugees on this basis, a practice that has been widely accepted by the international community, including both donors and refugee hosting countries.
Palestine refugees are not distinct from other protracted refugee situations such as those from Afghanistan or Somalia, where there are multiple generations of refugees, considered by UNHCR as refugees and supported as such. Protracted refugee situations are the result of the failure to find political solutions to their underlying political crises.
UN peacekeepers are often there to protect the camps in which refugees must live. When they are left without access to such basic necessities as food, water, sanitation and health care, the UN family provides it. Much of this support is provided through the United Nations humanitarian action machinery.
UNHCR is the lead agency with respect to the protection of refugees and the internally displaced. Along with the International Organization for Migration IOM , it is the lead agency for camp coordination and management. In addition to persecution and conflict, in the 21st century, natural disaster sometimes due to climate change can also force people to seek refuge in other countries.
Such disasters — floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, mudslides — are increasing in frequency and intensity. Afghanistan, notably, had the largest number of refugees of any country in the world for more than two decades between and , before being overtaken by Syria that year.
This past June, France became the first country to accept a gay Chechen refugee — a monumental decision that had global reverberations.
The UNHCR updated its guidelines to include refugees for reasons of gender or sexual orientation in There are about 17 million displaced persons across the African continent, the Guardian reports , and only a small proportion of them are reaching the shores of the European continent.
Many end up in sprawling, informal refugee camps like the town of Monguno in northeastern Nigeria. Refugees fleeing hunger can, of course, also be escaping from other factors at the same time, including the rise of extremist groups like Boko Haram in Nigeria and the impacts of climate change.
Officially, climate change is not yet a valid reason for an asylum claim. In , the first climate change refugee asylum case was shot down by the New Zealand High Court when a Kiribati man attempted to claim that status by law.
But as man-made climate change worsens, and oceans rise, the and conventions may need to expand their scope. Sign up Sign in with Facebook Sign in with Apple or. Rerequest with Facebook. This account has been deactivated. Refugees have been all over the news. And how do people become refugees? But between and now, the number of refugees and displaced persons has skyrocketed.
But even this has not proved a deterrent. Parents are so desperate to give their children safety, to give them a chance for a better life, that they are willing to risk being separated from them.
Can you imagine how horrible your situation would have to be for you to risk giving up your child so they might be safe? In many places, families flee because of dire economic circumstances or a lack of essential public services. In Iraq and Syria, for example, some communities are completely devastated by conflict. Water treatment plants and hospitals are bombed out. Schools are often targeted or used as military bases.
While Central America is not engulfed in full-scale war, families still face a dire economic situation, with desperate poverty. If there are no public services, if you cannot get clean water, if no schools are open anymore, you cannot stay. After the devastation of Hurricane Harvey in , many Americans were displaced by flooding. The government offered vouchers allowing some families to stay in hotels for up to two weeks, with a possibility for extension depending on circumstances.
But as hotels around Houston filled up, people were forced to look for vacancies further and further from home. Some had to travel miles to find a hotel with vacancies that was willing to accept government vouchers. These families were forced to make impossible choices regarding work and school. There was no place for them to stay closer to their community.
That kind of distance completely disrupts all normal routines and obligations. Many families that were displaced by Hurricane Katrina in have never returned to their original communities.
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