20 June, 2008


We need to remember those who cannot go home for one reason or another. Over 27 million people are displaced, some outside their country, most within. War, crime, unrest, and turmoil push people for places of stability to barely getting by.

The violence in refugee camps is horrid and widespread. Rape is very prevalent, as is corruption, disease, death and lack of basic necessities.

No one should have to live in the conditions millions are asked to exist under.
There now exists a generation that do not know life outside the camps. Families have nowhere to go, and nothing to return to. Employment is scare, opportunity nonexistent, hope is gone.


Little girls learn the best route to find water without being raped, children die of starvation, women cradle their malnourished children too weak to cry. There is nothing else for these people. They did nothing to deserve this life, and have no way of controlling their return.

According to the UN there are 27.1 million displaced people in the world (mostly IDPs). And the number is likely to increase.

“We are now faced with a complex mix of global challenges that could threaten even more forced displacement in the future,” Mr. Guterres (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) said. “They range from multiple new conflict-related emergencies in world hotspots to bad governance, climate-induced environmental degradation that increases competition for scarce resources, and extreme price hikes that have hit the poor the hardest and are generating instability in many places.”

"Among refugees, the report notes that Afghans (around 3 million, mainly in Pakistan and Iran) and Iraqis (around 2 million, mainly in Syria and Jordan) accounted for nearly half of all refugees under UNHCR's care worldwide in 2007, followed by Colombians (552,000) in a refugee-like situation, Sudanese (523,000) and Somalis (457,000)."

"Among the internally displaced, the report cites up to 3 million people in Colombia; 2.4 million in Iraq; 1.3 million in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC); 1.2 million in Uganda; and 1 million in Somalia."