No one wants to become a refugee.
No one should have to endure this humiliating and arduous ordeal.
Yet, millions do. Even one refugee forced to flee,
one refugee forced to return to danger is one too many.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
Message for World Refugee Day 2011

 

Established by a United Nations resolution in 2000, the United Nations General Assembly decided to recognize World Refugee Day as a day dedicated to raising awareness of the situation of refugees throughout the world.

While the major cause of displacement continues to be war, people are increasingly fleeing their homes because of extreme poverty, environmental concerns and climate change. The burden of helping the world’s refugees is starkly uneven with poor countries hosting vastly more displaced people than wealthier ones. While anti-refugee sentiment is heard loudest in industrialized countries, developing nations host 80% of the world’s refugees.

Every day, millions of children, women and men fear for their lives. Most want nothing more than to return home or to start a new life for their family. Please join people throughout the world to pray for the world’s refugees. Together, let us recommit ourselves to the work of transforming the world “. . . bringing all to that oneness for which Jesus Christ was sent.” (You Are Sent, SSND Constitution, C 48)