#displaced population

दुनिया के ये 8 करोड़ लोग कैसे झेल रहे हैं COVID-19 महामारी?

दुनिया की सबसे ज़्यादा संवेदनशील (Vulnerable) आबादी की तकलीफों को Corona Virus संक्रमण की महामारी जैसे मुंह चिढ़ा रही है. विस्थापितों (Displaced) की यह बड़ी आबादी पहले ही गरीबी रेखा (Poverty Line) के नीचे है और बुनियादों ज़रूरतों के लिए ही मजबूर भी. ऐसे में, कोविड 19 के प्रकोप के कारण इस आबादी को सबसे पहले अपने रोज़गार (Employment) और आय से हाथ धोना पड़ा. अब भोजन और दवाओं के अभाव के साथ ये आबादी…

This is a summary of what was said by UNHCR spokesperson Babar Baloch – to whom quoted text may be attributed – at today's press briefing at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

The Nigerian refugee family pictured here are one twelve families that have been welcomed into the home of a refugee family who had previously fled Boko Haram in northern Nigeria and settled in Diffa town. Empathy and solidarity are key characteristics of the local and displaced populations who are sharing their meager resources with those in desperate need. © UNHCR/Ibrahim Abdou

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is extremely worried over the alarming increase of attacks in the south-east of Niger, affecting locals and refugees in the region. In the month of March alone, some 88 civilians were reported dead in the escalation of violence.

We are dismayed to see the population’s suffering increase with each passing month since early 2019. The beginning of the year has brought a resurgence of violent attacks by Boko Haram, targeting security and defence forces as well as the civilian population in the region of Diffa, near the Nigerian border.

Since 2015, the number of people forcibly displaced within the Diffa region has risen to almost 250,000; almost half of them are refugees from Nigeria who had fled similar attacks and sought refuge across the border.

Recent attacks have displaced more than 18,000 people, many on the run for a second or third time, many seeking safety in Diffa town.

UNHCR is currently working with the government of Niger and our humanitarian partners to assist the newly displaced. We are trying to immediately relocate some 10,000 refugees from locations close to the border to the Sayam Forage refugee camp, some 45 kilometres away from the border. The camp is already hosting more than 15,000 refugees.

Additionally, UNHCR is supporting the government to seek alternative solutions for the remainder of the newly displaced and highly vulnerable people in desperate need of safety and humanitarian assistance.

UNHCR has mobilized psychosocial support workers to respond to the immediate needs of the newly displaced who are highly traumatized, in particular women and children.

Reports also suggest that the latest round of violence is displacing people across the border into Nigeria, including to the towns of Damasak and Maiduguri. They are leaving due to fear of the increasing insecurity in the Diffa region, as well as to search for humanitarian assistance.

No one knows for certain how many people will ultimately be displaced, but the most common numbers that come up in discussions and debates on this topic are anywhere between 150 to 250 million people over the next several decades.

But in the meantime, it's important to point out that we're not talking only about the future here. Many millions of people have already left their homes in many countries across the world, whether that's Panama, Kiribati in the Pacific, the Solomon Islands, Bangladesh, the Maldives, the state of Alaska in the United States, and many other places. It's really a contemporary issue, and one that people are working on already.

Legally, why is the idea of a "climate refugee" so controversial?

The United Nations, when it came up with the Refugee Convention following World War II, gave a very specific definition of what a refugee was. And that was somebody feeling prosecution on various grounds from their own government. And if you are displaced because of environmental factors that your own government did not cause, you are not technically a refugee.

We can see while MANY MILLIONS of people HAVE ALREADY LEFT homes, there is a direly DIM HUGE GAP globally within the political and societal institutions to even acknowledge this fact. UN’s charter needs to be UPDATED with its other aspects of lead to deal with climate change but it is a political matter of how this charter can be amended to accommodate the reality that people are forced to leave their homelands because of inhabitability. 

As long as the gap is there, politicians and countries can shift the balls to play games of saying who are ‘real’ refugees and who are ‘fake’ refugees. (Even people fit into the ‘real’ refugees category, nations still pass balls to one and another. Some nations use brutal policies to shut off people.)

Le Niger confronté à l'arrivée de réfugiés en provenance du Nigeria