TEHRAN (UNHCR) – The General Assembly of the United Nations has decided that the 20th of June each year should be marked as World Refugee Day; a day to commemorate refugees and reflect on what they went through and that we can do to assist. 

 

Today, we should try to take just “1” minute to put ourselves in the place of refugees and try to imagine how it would be to lose everything one has gained over the years, in just a blink of an eye; how war and natural disasters could impact families, separating them, forcing them to start from scratch.

 

Bernard Doyle, UNHCR Iran Representative says, “Refugees are people who are forced to flee from war or persecution, therefore World Refugee Day is not a day to be celebrated, exactly, since nobody would wish to be a refugee. We should definitely use the day to pay tribute to the strength and resilience of refugees and to acknowledge and thank those who protect and assist them.”

 

Doyle thanks the Iranian government, different international and local organizations for their support to humanitarian work in Iran but more specifically the contribution of individual Iranians who, through their kindness to refugees, have demonstrated the highest moral and social values of this country. He adds, “With all this support, those refugees who are returning voluntarily from this country are doing so empowered with good health, good education and the ability to generate their own livelihoods upon return to their homeland; essential elements in making return sustainable.”

 

Global displacement today is often described with large numbers, statistics and percentages. Some 45 million people are forcibly displaced in the world today. However we should not forget that there are human beings behind these numbers and each has a sad story of its own. Even people in this country unfortunately have had the bitter experience of war. Conflict and displacement is not something that anyone would choose for themselves, but it could happen to anyone, even one of us. So let us just take “1” minute and think about refugees.

 

Today Iran is host to over 880,000 registered refugees, out of which more than 840,000 are Afghan and around 40,000 are Iraqi.