World Refugee Day, celebrated on June 20, is in itself a plea for those forced to flee their homes, with a view to raising awareness of their rights and needs wherever they are.
Every minute, 20 people must abandon everything to escape war, persecution or terror. However, there are several types of displaced people in the world.
In 2024, this day is focused on solidarity with refugees under the slogan “ For a world that welcomes refugees“.
According to the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), “ showing solidarity means keeping our doors open, recognizing the strengths and achievements of refugees, and reflecting on the challenges they face“.
Solidarity with people forced to flee also implies the need to seek solutions to their situation by working, in particular, to put an end to conflicts so that they can return home in complete safety, ensuring that they have the possibility to rebuild within the communities that welcomed them and provide host countries with the means they need to help refugees.
Read also: South Sudan: 1.33 million refugees returned home in six years
Thus, World Refugee Day highlights the rights, needs and dreams of refugees, and helps to raise political awareness and mobilize resources so that refugees can not only survive, but also thrive.
The world had a record number of 120 million forcibly displaced people at the end of April, the UNHCR said in its annual report.
At the end of last year, 117.3 million people were displaced, almost 10 million more than a year earlier, marking 12 consecutive years of increases.
Of the 2023 global total, 68.3 million people were internally displaced, while the number of refugees and others in need of international protection jumped to 43.4 million .
According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC), conflicts and disasters pushed the number of internally displaced people (IDPs) to a record high of 75.9 million at the end of 2023.
The number of IDPs has jumped by 50% over the last five years, specifies the NGO in its annual report published in Geneva.
This number should be compared to the 71.1 million internally displaced people in the world at the end of 2022.
Violence and conflict are the main causes of these forced displacements (68.3 million), while disasters have forced 7.7 million people to flee and settle elsewhere.
Over the past five years, the number of people displaced by violence and conflict has jumped by 22.6 million. The two largest increases taking place in 2022 and 2023. However, with 9.1 million IDPs, Sudan has the highest number of displaced people ever recorded in a single country since 2008 when counting began.
World Refugee Day was first observed globally on June 20, 2001, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. It was initially known as African Refugee Day, before the United Nations General Assembly officially declared it an International Day in December 2000.
With MAP
