(Photo: AP/Emilio Morenatti)An Afghan refugee girl is seen in a refugee camp on the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan, Thursday, June 19, 2008. Ahead of World Refugee Day on June 20, the UNHCR said 11.4 million people were forced to leave their countries in 2007, compared to 9.9 million in 2006. Another 26 million were displaced within their own countries by conflict or persecution, up from 24.2 million the year before. Nearly half the world's refugees are from war-torn Afghanistan and Iraq.
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American Baptist churches are joining the United Nations and international agencies in celebrating the spirit and courage of the millions of displaced people on World Refugee Day on Friday.
“In the 60 years that the United States has been welcoming refugees, American Baptists – in partnership with Church World Service – have been on the forefront of this outreach to those fleeing persecution and oppression,” said Kenneth George, national coordinator of human services for the American Baptist Churches USA National Ministries.
“As we acknowledge this World Refugee Day, it’s essential we continue our long tradition of welcoming the stranger by embracing the large numbers of refugees from Burma, Africa and the Middle East today,” he said. “And we must advocate for global policies that address the underlying causes that lead to persons fleeing their homelands.”
Since 1948, ABCUSA National Ministries has helped more than 98,000 refugees by supporting member congregations across the countries that sponsored uprooted families and individuals and helped them build new lives.
The first International Refugee Day took place in 2001 – a year after the U.N. General Assembly declared that the global observance should take place on Africa Refugee Day,which is June 20. Previously, countries and regions determined their own refugee day of observance.
Africa hosts the most refugees out of the estimated 11.4 million refugees and asylum seekers in the world. Nearly 9 million refugees have spent more than five years in refugee camps.
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According to the 1951 United Nations Convention on Refugees, a refugee is a person who, "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country."
The world’s two biggest refugee problems are in Sudan and Iraq. Some 2.5 million people are displaced in Darfur, Sudan, due to years of fighting between ethnic African rebels and the government-backed Arab militia known as the janjaweed.
In Iraq, some 2.2 million Iraqis have fled their homeland to seek refuge in neighboring countries since the 2003 U.S.-led offensive. The overwhelming majority of refugees are in Syria and Jordan. Another 1.9 million Iraqis are displaced inside Iraq.
Out of the roughly 2 million Iraqi refugees, nearly half the number is made up of Christians fleeing persecution.
There are now about 600,000 Iraqi Christians left in Iraq, down from 1.2 million before 2003.
On the Web: http://www.churchworldservice.org
