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| Angola: would you go back? |
| What happens to a "Lost Boy?" |
| Thank you from Moscow |
| Update from Liberia |
| Kosovo in Crisis |
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UNHCR is busy helping refugees all over the world. Find out more about what we're doing in countries like Chad, Venezuela and Iraq. |
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Mr. António Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, sends a message to UNHCR's donors. |
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Paulo Chiyulo, UN Refugee Agency, Senior Field Clerk in Luau, Angola helping his people return home after 27 years of war.
UNHCR is mandated to lead and co-ordinate international action to protect refugees and resolve refugee problems worldwide. Its primary purpose is to safeguard the rights and well-being of refugees. It strives to ensure that everyone can exercise the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another State, with the option to return home voluntarily, integrate locally or to resettle in a third country. Today, a staff of around 6,540 people in 116 countries continues to help 19.2 million persons.
In this issue, we focus on UNHCR's successful activities in the following 3 countries: Chad, Venezuela, and Iraq.
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UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie supported shelter efforts in her World Refugee Day speech on June 20, 2004 and even lent a hand in the field to create shelter for newly arrived refugees. © UNHCR/N.Behring |
Chad 
It may not have reached the news headlines, but some 110,000 Sudanese – including many women and children – have fled on foot into Chad to escape fighting. All along the volatile border, exhausted parents are trying to protect their families with little or no shelter from the blistering sun during the day and freezing weather at night. To bring attention to this “invisible”, but urgent crisis, UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie recently made a very generous personal donation to ensure these refugees have enough water. She urged individuals and corporations to donate funds to help provide immediate assistance in the form of blankets, mats, jerry cans and food. We have also created three new camps, away from the border, with shelters, latrines, showers and clean water. Relocating these refugees to safety before the rainy season starts has become a race against time.
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Lining up for medical check-ups on Women's Health Day in Santa Barbara, Venezuela. © UNHCR/A.Simancas |
“I cleared this field by hand,” says Antonio, a Colombian boy pointing at a dirt soccer pitch in Ureña,Venezuela. He was waiting to take part in a tournament, organized as part of an initiative to raise awareness among Colombians – who have fled armed conflict at home – about the importance of registering with the UN Refugee Agency. Without formal refugee status these Colombian families live in limbo, unable to access education, healthcare or legal protection. Unofficial estimates indicate that some 3 million Colombians have been displaced since 1985, including 15,000 in Venezuela.
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Ansar camp in Khuzestan province, Iran, is now near empty and destroyed. © UNHCR/Z.Soleimani |
More than 2,600 Iraqi refugees have returned home from Iran since November of last year. Although the UN Refugee Agency is not advocating return, for those who are desperate to go home, we provide mine awareness training, transport, tents and emergency assistance. Many have returned from Ashrafi Esfahani, Iran’s largest refugee camp, once home to 12,000 refugees, which closed this February.
Thank you from Moscow Nearly 1,131 refugee children, most from Afghanistan, are in school this morning in Moscow thanks to specialist education support provided by the UN Refugee Agency, and paid for by supporters like you. Russia – and Moscow in particular – is a particularly hostile environment for refugees. Daily humiliations and the family worries that come with living on less than one US dollar a day mean constant stress. Children, already traumatised by war and the isolation of feeling rejected by their host country, often are victims of the grief, pressures and anxiety experienced by their parents. Going to school is vital if children are to have any chance of integrating into Russian life, and making friends with Russian children. Yet many are unable to speak Russian, and have a disrupted education behind them. The UN Refugee Agency is therefore working hard on the ground to support these children.Through local NGOs we are using your donations to prepare refugee children for entry into Moscow schools with intensive Russian lessons and studies in Russian culture and basic education. Most children are ready to move into a local school after nine months in the program.When they do, they are supported by child psychologists, who also help their teachers to better understand the children’s needs. Yet school brings many new costs, which refugee families are unable to meet – $33 a month for school lunches, $13 a month for travel, $9 per year for books and pencils, $27 per year for school events and trips and other fees. With your help,we are paying for these, enabling refugee children to grasp the opportunities education brings for a new life.
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PHOTO CREDITS:
ABOVE and TOP: © UNHCR/BO MOSCOW
