World Refugee Day falls each year on June 20. It is an international day designated by the United Nations to honor refugees around the world. It is a day to celebrates the courage and strength of people who are forced to flee their home country to escape conflict or persecution. It is also a day to collaborate and reflect on ways to ways to improve the lives of refugees.
World Refugee Day was held globally for the first time on June 20 2001, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. World Refugee Day 2022 focusses on the right of every person on this planet to seek safety, whoever they are, wherever they come from and whenever they are forced to flee. With the number of forcibly displaced people around the world now estimated at more than 100 million, the theme of this year’s event – the right to seek safety – is significant and timely.
Refugees and asylum seekers comprise about one third of all international migration within Sub-Saharan Africa, with Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Kenya being Africa’s top five host countries for refugees and asylum seekers. Nigeria is relatively a minor host country for refugees, mostly from neighbouring West African countries.
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Since 2017, conflict in the anglophone regions of Cameroon has triggered an influx of refugees to Nigeria, most of whom are registered in Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Benue, Cross River, Enugu and Taraba states. The number of Cameroonian refugees fleeing to Nigeria has risen from 17,000 in early 2018 to 76,000 at the end of 2021. At the same time, terrorism and armed banditry in the North-East and North-West regions have sparked a massive displacement of about 330,000 Nigerians to neighbouring countries of Chad, Cameroon and Niger.
A key aspect of the UN Convention on Refugees is non-discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion or nationality. It is noteworthy that African countries, with the support of UNHCR and other international NGOs, have been generally successful in hosting and settling millions of refuges from other African countries, high-income Western countries have routinely discriminated against refugees from Africa, Middle East and Latin America. The World Refugees Day 2022 is an apt occasion to remind all countries that are signatory to the Convention on Refugees to pledge to recognize the right of every person on this planet to seek safety, whoever they are, and wherever they come from.
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