Who Is Today’s Refugee?

"A refugee is a person who has fled his or her country and is unable or unwilling to return because of a ‘well founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion’(…)"

Article 1 (A.2), 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees

No one likes or chooses to be a refugee. Being a refugee means more than just being a foreigner. It means living in exile and often depending on others for basic needs such as food, clothing and shelter.

People become refugees when one or more of their basic human rights are abused. Many are victims of war, political, religious and other forms of persecution. In the initial chaos of fleeing and seeking safety in another country, most victims lose virtually every right and material possession which form the cornerstone of any civilized society – their homes, personal belongings, schooling and health care, close family members and sometimes even their identities. Refugee women and their children, along with the elderly, are the most vulnerable.

On the run

‘Fresh wave of displaced people arrives in Afghan capital’. ‘Rwandan refugees dying in Kisangani’. ‘Hong Kong forces more boat people home’. ‘UNHCR says right to asylum in Europe under threat’. ‘Georgian refugees insist on the right to return’. ‘Thousands displaced by violence in Colombia’. ‘Military interventions to stem Albanian exodus’.

All these headlines appeared in the newspapers during one single week. As they suggest, the problem of displacement now affects every part of the world and has become a major subject of public and political concern.

Useful definitions

Refugees: Persons outside their country of origin who are unable or unwilling to return, owing to a well-founded fear of persecution.   Returnees: Persons who were of concern to the international community when outside of their country of origin and who remain so for a limited period after their return.   Internally displaced people: Persons displaced by conflict within their country. The UN assists some groups of internally displaced.   Asylum seekers: Persons who have left their countries of origin and have applied for recognition as refugees in other countries and whose applications are still pending.   Others of concern: Persons who are in refugee like situations but who have not formally been recognized as refugees. This covers, among others, victims of war in the former Yugoslavia and various groups in the CIS countries.

People flee their countries when their lives become endangered. Every day, somewhere in the world, people become refugees.

Over the past decade several conflicts have been on the increase. As emphasized by the Secretary-General in the Millennium Report, civilians in many parts of the world continue to be forced to flee – mostly – by internal wars. As seen in places as diverse as Kosovo, East Timor, Sierra Leone and the Great Lakes region of Africa, the root causes of conflict and displacement very often lie in the failure to give due recognition to the aspirations and rights of ethnic minorities, or various social groups. This fuels separatist claims, especially in areas with a history of strong autonomy. Tribalism, nationalism, and ethnocentrism are exacerbated. In many cases separatist trends are severely repressed. Minorities are particularly targeted by this repression. The outcomes are polarized societies and communities, displacement and crystallized refugee crises.

As the number of refugees has increased and spread to every corner of the globe, the mandate to help them has been extended every five years. The UN refugee organization has expanded its relief and emergency operations and in recent years has been called upon increasingly to help other groups of people living in refugee-like situations. These include people who have been granted protection on a group basis, or on purely humanitarian grounds, but who have not been fully recognized as refugees.

The largest of these groups of people who live in refugee-like situations are the so-called internally displaced people (IDPs) who have fled their homes, generally during a civil war, but have not crossed an international border. The Secretary-General, for example, in 1991 designated UNHCR the lead UN humanitarian agency in former Yugoslavia, where it aided some 3.5 million refugees, IDPs and other war-affected people throughout the conflict. The agency's operational expertise was used to aid nearly the entire population of Bosnia-Herzegovina, including members of the general population who were neither displaced nor refugees, and those who fled the crisis in Kosovo in 1999.