COMBATING CAUSES OF ALL FORMS OF CRISES AS THE 2015 WORLD REFUGEE DAY IS MARKED TODAY SATURDAY JUNE 20
A refugee can be described as a person who has
been forced to leave his or her country due to persecution, which could be
attributed to his/her race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or social
affiliation, or as a result of disaster, either natural or manmade, such as
massacre, genocide, war, inferno, earthquake, terrorism, climate change, and
famine, just to mention but a few. In some cases, the internally displaced
individuals within a certain country can also be referred to as ‘Refugees’.
Today Saturday June 20, the global community is commemorating the World
Refugee Day. On 4th of December 2000, the United Nations (UN)
General Assembly in its unanimous Resolution decided that, from 2001, June 20
of every year would be celebrated as World Refugee Day. In the resolution, the
General Assembly noted that 2001 marked the golden jubilee or the 50th
anniversary of the 1951 Convention relating to the status of Refugees.
Each year on June 20, the United
Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and countless civic groups around the world host
World Refugee Day events in order to draw public attention to the millions of
refugees and people who are internally displaced worldwide.
Recently, the Bornu State government in Nigeria cried foul as well as
sought for the financial assistance of the international community in regard to
the alarming number of displaced persons recorded in the state owing to the
ongoing insurgency of the Boko Haram sect in the area. Such incident is not
only peculiar to Nigeria, but to many other countries in the world.
Statistics show that not less than forty-three million people worldwide
are presently displaced as a result of conflict and persecution, which is the
highest number since the middle of 1990s. More than fifteen million of the
aforementioned figure are refugees who fled their home countries, while the
rest are people who remain displaced by conflict within their own homelands and
they are generally regarded as ‘Internally Displaced Persons’.
Worldwide, refugees have really
suffered an untold hardship in the respective camps or localities they are
being hosted or they found themselves; they mostly lack the three basic needs
of mankind, which remain food, clothing and shelter. Most of them often feared
killed by deadly diseases, or sometimes due to the unbearable hazards attached
to the environment they reside in.
It is worthy to note that, most
of the beggars found on the major roads or streets of most cities in Nigeria,
likewise other countries, are refugees. A good number of them who hail from the
neighbouring countries to include Niger Republic, Chad, Benin Republic and
Cameroon, migrated to Nigeria in search of a lasting succour. This implies that
more than half of the world’s refugees are in urban environments, not in camps.
This set of people invariably fall victim to human trafficking, which is
currently on rampage in several countries.
No doubt, displaced persons are found virtually in all the nations
across the globe. Since refugees are mainly victims of either manmade or
natural disasters, there is a compelling need to take appropriate and drastic
measures that would thoroughly address all forms of disasters or conflicts
witnessed by mankind.
It is noteworthy that, even the natural disasters such as earthquake,
depletion of the Ozone layer, climate change, erosion, and what have you, are
mostly attributable to human/manmade actions or activities. Needless to say
that, any event that could lead to displacement of individuals from their
places of residence or country of origin, can be averted by the concerned
persons or authorities, as the case may be.
To this end, inferno for instance, which usually takes place as a result
of man’s carelessness or lackadaisical attitude, can be prevented by
sensitizing the public on the fundamental actions that could lead to such
disaster. In the same vein, people ought to be professionally directed on
where, when, and how to erect various structures both residential and
industrial as well as in the case of drilling
of boreholes in order to help avoid future occurrence of earthquake and other
related crises.
There is also need for legal backing in respect to prevention of the
various uncalled attitudes or practices including discrimination, extremism, racism,
ethnicity, human rights violation, et cetera, that can result to a
life-threatening crisis such as insurgency, terrorism or war. Hence, the bill
concerning prevention of terrorism acts that is presently lying on the floor of
the National Assembly ought to be given a speedy hearing by the current law
makers with a view to passing it into law in earnest.
As Nigeria joins the rest of the world to mark the fifteenth (15th)
commemoration of the World Refugee Day, I call on the various civil society
organizations as well as religious bodies to embark on a massive and rigorous
awareness crusade that would educate the entire public on the dangers of any
form of crisis, which will go a long way to bring a holistic attitudinal change
among the overall citizenry. Think about it!
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COMR FRED DOC NWAOZOR
(The Media Ambassador)
_____________________________________
frednwaozor@gmail.com
+2348028608056
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