Posted on 06/20/2007 8:57:27 PM PDT by blam
Refugees to flee 'arc of instability' to Europe
By Mike Pflanz in Kajo Keji
Last Updated: 2:16am BST 21/06/2007
Fresh waves of migrants will attempt to reach Europe unless more is done to rebuild their war-torn homelands, the United Nations refugee chief has said.
Somalian refugees attend a UN sponsored event to mark 'World Refugee Day' in Nairobi
The number of refugees running from a "boiling arc of instability" from Somalia through the Middle East to Afghanistan jumped 14 per cent to 9.9 million last year.
A further 24.5 million have become "internally displaced people" - refugees in their own countries - according to a report released by the UN refugee agency UNHCR.
"The over-riding instinct of these people is to return to their homes when it is safe to do so," said Antonio Guterres, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, during a visit to southern Sudan to mark World Refugee Day.
"But when they get home, unless we focus more on getting them services, schools, health care and jobs, they can become illegal immigrants who look outside their countries again for a better life."
In Sudan's south, 155,000 of the 400,000 people who fled Africa's longest civil war have returned since peace was signed in January 2005. A separate conflict still rages in the western Darfur province.
Agencies hope a further 102,000 will head home this year. But once they arrive back in their villages, they find an almost total lack of the services they came to expect in refugee camps and communities, where many have lived for two decades or more.
A convoy of lorries this week carried 161 refugees along the dirt roads of northern Uganda to Kajo Keji, a small Sudanese town close to the border.
"There is a happiness in my heart now that I am going home to my own country," Luku Joel, 30, said as the lorry carrying him and 35 others, aged from four months to 65, bounced into Sudan.
"But in the camps in Uganda, there is nursery schooling for the children, there are small jobs we can do to make money, there are qualified people if we get sick.
"In Sudan, look, there is nothing," he added, gesturing from the back of the lorry to the verdant emptiness of the countryside.
International agencies have built schools and refurbished hospitals, but that is not enough to keep people in Sudan after the initial joy of being home wears off, many recent arrivals said.
The traffic back over the border into Uganda, and potentially much further afield, is growing.
"These people will not stay here, when they see that we have so little compared to how they have been living," said Clement Wani, the governor of southern Sudan's Central Equatoria province.
"Even if the devil himself came to help me, I could not rebuild this place quick enough to stop my people leaving."
As part of events to mark yesterday's UN refugee day, UNHCR calculated that 2.1 million Afghans, 1.5 million Iraqis and 460,000 Somalis are still living outside their own countries.
Historically, refugees tend to bring “instability” with them....
“As part of events to mark yesterday’s UN refugee day, UNHCR calculated that 2.1 million Afghans, 1.5 million Iraqis and 460,000 Somalis are still living outside their own countries.”
TROP strikes again and again and again.
The last thing these people need is more humanitarian UN debilitating relief.
U.N.’s answer to every problem. Throw someone elses money at the problem and nobody notice as we skim a bit for ourselves.
Why are these idiots getting such worldwide press? American outlets are also giving breathless coverage to this. Seems very coordinated.
Can't they arrange their own Juneteenth celebrations in their home countries?
Yah, I think about half of these are in Faribault, MN. (not really, but there are a lot of them there) During that time, I know of only ONE Christian African family who arrived at roughly the same time.
Rest easy, the UN’s on it.
ping.
Odd, that Arc of Instability, lines up very neatly with the Crescent of Islam. The Mini-arc in Indonesia and Malaysia matches fairly well too.
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