Our Responsibilities

There are now close to 33 million refugees world-wide. Impossible even to imagine. People migrating of necessity out of war zones in fear for their lives and settling temporarily in areas where they may live in peace, away from their homes, their home countries, living in abeyance, living on the edge of possibilities, in abject poverty, hoping for surcease.

We who live in developed economies, in countries of the west, in free democracies can not even begin to imagine such personal trauma, a total upheaval of all that is familiar and secure.

Which is why the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is very busy, concerned with the vital work of sustaining the elemental needs of such an untold number of people afflicted by circumstances not of their making. At one time people migrated because of crop failures, sometimes associated with weather extremes - too much or too little rainfall, tornadoes, hurricanes - turning to areas with more promise. Settling there, making new opportunities for themselves and their dependents.

Historically, tribal conflicts and conflicts on a wider scale unseated people from their homes, much as has happened with millions of Darfurians in Sudan, with Iraqis, Somalis, Afghans, dependent on the good graces of host countries who often find their own resources and patience strained by the burden of looking after the needs of refugees. Refugee camps are set up by the UNHCR in bordering countries to assist in the delivery of basic needs.

Occasionally refugees are able to find other accommodations for themselves and the security of jobs, if the host country is willing, and often they have no need to try to return to countries of origin, post-emergency. They represent a small minority of refugees. But huge repatriation efforts are often undertaken by the United Nations agencies to allow refugees to return to their own countries, to once again take up their lives in an atmosphere most familiar to them, culturally, traditionally.

Developed countries are also canvassed to encourage the acceptance of refugees as immigrants, and those fortunate enough to be accepted undertake their final migration to countries as unalike those they have fled as they could possibly conceive of. There to be accepted into the mainstream of life in a society whose civil and social mores, values, politics and geography require a tremendous adjustment, but where safety and security and promise of the future is assured.

In the meanwhile, and despite that refugee camps are considered to be transitional stops leading to eventual permanence somewhere, among the refugee populations' numbers are those who have been born in exile, since it can take decades and more to re-settle or emigrate, or repatriate refugees. And, in reflection of world events, be they war or weather-related, the numbers of refugees continue to grow, rather than diminish.

The UNHCR has launched an urgent appeal for all wealthy countries to increase the amounts they have targeted for UN refugee relief programmes. They're looking for at least $3.8-billion this year to support their humanitarian operations. As one might expect, the Scandinavian countries are up front and centre in generosity, as is the European Union. The United States is the single largest donor nation, with Sweden following, then the European Commission and finally Norway.

Canada was the 10th largest donor. We've a population of roughly 33-million people, yet countries like the Netherlands and Denmark, with smaller populations somehow manage to allocate more dollars than Canada.

All this takes a lot of funding. Which comes out of the public coffers of UN member-nations whose national treasuries can be readily stretched to accommodate the need to support the work of UNHCR.

Now geographic areas are circumscribed by national borders.