Refugees have little or no respite today in the world and that’s a telling tale of the type of world that we have created around us. There are growing numbers of those that are fleeing something in their home country ad all too often they flee to the nearest available space, which in an ever-spiraling knock-on effect ends up with displacing people yet again, forcing them to go somewhere else. The USA has a lot to answer for after having unsettled and destabilized the Middle East in its search for controlling oil and the seeking of material benefit and gain, under the auspices of a fight for some illusive democracy and the savior of those countries from the hands of dictators. That’s called interference or intervention, but the USA gave itself the God-given right to step into the affairs of others and decide what should happen there. Guns-a-blazing and rockets at the ready, parachuting into Iraq and Afghanistan and the list could go on. The USA rarely gets it right. They were the ones that bought Saddam Hussein back from exile, weren’t they? They were the ones that were arming Al-Qaeda against the Russians in their ideological warfare against the super powerful USSR that they were hell bent on destroying, weren’t they? The USA managed to destabilize the entire Middle East in its quest for power and fuel. The USA is the source of the past three decades of the Afghans being the number one country to produce the world’s refugees. Until this year, that is. The Afghans were the world’s top refugees in terms of numbers in the world and 25% of all refugees in the world were Afghans. That figure has been overtaken in the world today by Syrians.
There’s an unprecedented crisis of refugees in the world today and they have increased in numbers by 40% since 2011. 59.5 million people are currently displaced somewhere in the world because of trouble and conflict or persecution in their country of origin. Those displaced people do not all have refugee status since the process is long and arduous; almost as long as the journey to get to the country in which they will be able to apply for that protection. There are only 14 million refugees that possess the status officially in the world today out of the nearly 60 million that are currently living elsewhere. There are ten countries that have opened their borders to 60% of all those that are either officially or unofficially refugees today in the world. The top countries that have hosted them are Turkey, Pakistan and Lebanon.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is mandated to protect refugees throughout the world and has been since its creation in 1950. Its “mandate is to provide, on a non-political and humanitarian basis, international protection to refugees and to seek permanent solutions for them.”
A refugee is a person who is outside their country of citizenship because they believe that they have well-founded grounds for fear of persecution due to factors such as race, religion or nationality or even political opinion and social group. They are also unable to avail themselves of protection of their home country’s government (as this may also be the source of the persecution, or not). Legally the so-called present ‘migrant’ crisis that is taking place in the European Union is not technically a migrant crisis at all. They are refugees. But, why isn’t that world being used? Perhaps it’s because ultimately migrants are perceived as bad entities that want to take advantage of the society to which they are trying to gain access. They are spongers that will destroy the tissue of lies that is called a national identity, that myth that becomes so engrained in the collective storytelling of a nation that the citizens of that country believe that they have a common destiny together. The migrants of Europe are not migrants at all. They are refugees; or they perhaps may become them one day since they will have to go through the process of asylum seekers first of all before gaining access to that status of protection. Refugee status could take up to five years at times. The UN believes that refugee status is even hereditary for two groups given their current world status: Palestinian refugees and Sahrawi refugees.
The UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees considers a refugee as a person who: “owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.”
So who are the countries that have provided shelter in the world to the largest number of refugees? They are often countries that are in turmoil and suffering from instability themselves.
Top Countries Hosting Refugees
10. China
The majority of refugees come from Vietnam in this country and the total number of refugees stands at 301,052 for a total population of 1.36 billion people. Very few child refugees are in this country for some unknown reason (27%, whereas the international average is at 57%).
9. Uganda
There are 385,513 refugees in this country that has a total population of 36.8 million people, with the majority coming from South Sudan. In 2014, there was an increase in the number of refugees by 140,000 for this country. 60% of all refugees are children in this country also.
8. Chad
Refugees in this country that has a population total of 11 million stand at 452,897 people. The majority come from the Central African Republic (25% of the population has been displaced already) and the number of refugees has increased for the past 13 years. There are over 34 refugees per thousand of the population in this country and that is the 4th highest figure in the world.
7. Kenya
There are 551,352 (3.8% of the world refugee population) refugees in this country that has a total population of 41.8 million. They too come from South Sudan in the main.
6. Jordan
The total refugee population stands at 654,141 people and the country has a total population of 6.5 million. The majority of refugees come from Syria today and there was an increase in applications to the tune of 119,000 in 2014. Just a few years ago (2013), there were fewer than 100,000 refugees in the country. There are 87.2 refugees per one thousand of the Jordanian population and that is the 2nd highest ration in the world.
5. Ethiopia
There are 659,524 refugees in this country and the total Ethiopian population stands at 88.9 million people. The majority of refugees come from South Sudan. 58% of all refugees here are under 18 years of age.
4. Islamic Republic of Iran
This country of 77 million citizens hosts 982,027 refugees today and the majority is from Afghanistan. Iran currently hosts 6.8% of the world refugee population. Sanctions imposed on Iran have considerable and consistently made it difficult for the United Nations to provide aid to Iran to assist refugees, unfortunately.
3. Lebanon
There is a total population in this country of 4.5 million Lebanese and there is a total of 1,154,040 refugees in the country. The majority comes from Syria and there was an increase in the numbers in 2014 that worked out to over 400,000 applications. It currently has the highest ration of refugees in the world (232 per one thousand of the population).
2. Pakistan
There is a total population of 182.6 million people in Pakistan and they have a total number of refugees that stands at 1,505,525, with the majority coming from Afghanistan.
1. Turkey
Turkey has a total population of 76 million and there are 1,587,374 refugees in this country. 1.2 million were admitted in 2014 alone, with the vast majority coming from neighboring Syria. 11% of worldwide refugees come to Turkey.
The crisis that has been going on in Syria has been the source of the most refugees in the world for the last year now. Pakistan has been the top destination of most refugees for the last 22 years out of a total of 36 that have been monitored. Most of Pakistan’s refugees come from Afghanistan. It was due to the Taliban that they fled their country. But, why were the Taliban ever in power in Afghanistan? Return to the USA and their sole object of desire: destroy the influence of the USSR in the country and so arm the enemies of the Soviets for decades until they become so powerful that you can’t control them.
There’s that wonderful and yet at the same time disappointing joke that when you take the names of Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein and you write down the letters that are in common in their two names, then you get to spell out ‘Made in the US’. Certainly a coincidence and nothing more. But, an interesting explanation to exactly what happened in the region. Yes, they were made in the USA and made by the USA in the American combat against the Soviets, regardless of the consequences.
Half of refugees in the world are children today (57%) and ultimately only 1% ever get to return to their home country because the conflict last for decades. Countries that do open their borders fid complicated ways of halting the tide of refugees that are applying in their countries for status. Pakistan refused in 2014 to renew the cards of nearly 150,000 refugees and so they are now living illegally in the country. Lebanon has made the process an administrative nightmare that is even more difficult than conflict itself in the country of origin.
In the USA, there is only 1 refugee per 1,000 Americans and that makes a total of 267,000. What will happen if countries close their borders that are fleeing persecution? They will probably end up (having lost everything that they could have lost already) resorting to anything in order to gain status or at least the ability to stay in the host country. They will resort to the even more dangerous options of fleeing their country that might be available to them. These are the people that have no home and no place to welcome them; the unwanted millions in the world.
What would you do with the refugees in the world?
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