Friday, July 26, 2013

When You Do Have to Live Like a Refugee


People tend to move or migrate for several reasons, including work opportunity or survival and sometimes to find hope within a nested support system. 

People are refugees or forced into relocation because of the effects of war, revolution and persecution -- the latter including slavery and religious or other cultural attacks on a scale ranging from harassment through coercion to genocide.   

As of mid-2013, the biggest mass refugee movements radiate from just a handful of countries. That is, more than half of all new and recent refugees have been displaced by upheavals in Somalia and Sudan (plus South Sudan), Afghanistan (still), Iraq (still) and Syria. (Source: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Displacement: The New 21st Century Challenge. Global Trends 2012 [2013]).

All refugees have stories to tell. Anyone can become a refugee. In addition to wild variables such as effects of war, revolution and persecution, we can add natural disasters, global warming, climate change and mass toxic events, or even slow seepage.


Today's Rune: Signals.  

1 comment:

Charles Gramlich said...

I have been a refugee for at least a short period of time, when we had to evacuate for Katrina and then couldn't get back home for several months. It's a strange experience, and not to be recommended. We were lucky in not losing everything we left behind at least.