It takes courage to be a refugee
Courage n. Mental
or moral strength to venture, persevere and withstand
danger, fear or difficulty. Webster’s
New Collegiate Dictionary.
As
ordinary people living peaceful lives, we rarely have
to put our courage to the test. Refugees are ordinary
people, too, except that through no fault of their own,
they find themselves in extraordinary circumstances.
As such, they are often required to dig deep into their
own inner sources of strength in order, as another dictionary
puts it, to find “the ability to overcome fear.”
Initially, that fear may be the immediate one of trying to
escape the horrors of war and persecution, the pain of losing
homes and loved ones, and the ordeal of flight. Later comes
the deeper anxiety of uncertainty —the worry of how
to rebuild their lives, either in completely new circumstances,
or back home where they now may not be welcome.
Yes, it certainly does take courage to be a refugee. It takes courage not to give up hope. Courage to make the most of the hand that has been dealt. Courage to start a new life against daunting odds, eventually to become contributing and enriching members of society once more.
There is no typical refugee. Every story is different, every loss is a personal one. But around the world different crises affect different groups. Some are almost settled. Other conflicts are new, with fresh refugee problems.
Back to top...
Portraits in courage
In this year’s World
Refugee Day awareness campaign, out of the roughly 17 million
refugees under our protection, we profile five individuals
from five different regions. Naturally, their names are not
real. But the courage they typify most definitely is.
Maria. Colombia
Maria
is seventeen, and already a widow. Last year members of an
armed group rampaged through her remote village in Colombia,
shot the men and torched the huts. Terrified, Maria ran into
the dense forest, where she walked and hid for days. Exhausted
and bleeding, with no identification papers, she stumbled
into a friendly village and, eventually, found herself in
the care of UNHCR at a facility in Bogotá. With
their help, she was provided with proper documentation. Now,
with her ordeal behind her, and armed with renewed hope and
a basic education, Maria plans to start her young life all
over again.
Ibrahim.
Afghanistan
It seems that Ibrahim’s family has always been suffering the fallout of war – the Soviet occupation, the Taliban excesses, the US-led intervention. Several years ago, the family fled their home in Kabul to escape the brutality of the Taliban, and after a horrendous winter journey, mostly on foot, across snow-covered passes and icy rivers, they arrived, starving, at a UNHCR camp in Pakistan. Several long years later, always dreaming of their home in Kabul, the family finally managed to return – to a house that’s
nothing more than a bombed-out shell. But though no longer
young, Ibrahim is determined to rebuild the family home.
With typical courage, determination, and the help of a UNHCR
construction kit, this proud, now ex-refugee, no doubt will
do just that.
Dr. Phu Hong. Vietnam
As a French-trained physician, Phu came under government suspicion. Fearing for his life, Phu decided the only way out was to flee by boat to Malaysia. In 1989, he joined a dozen other escapees in an open fishing boat. Twenty parched, sun-blistered days later, he and seven fellow survivors found themselves in the Sungei Besi camp near Kuala Lumpur. Eventually, with the help of UNHCR, Phu was resettled in Canada where, to re-qualify as a paediatrician, he first had to learn a new language, English. Phu also had to get used to the frigid Calgary winters, which to a Vietnamese brought up in the tropics, is no small matter.
Hana. Sarajevo
Still today, from the safety of her Gothenberg flat, Hana looks back at those terrible days with disbelief: how could the people next door, friends for generations, so suddenly and violently hate her? Why, after centuries of neighbourly cooperation, did the unspeakable evil of ethnic cleansing suddenly explode? Bombed out of her home during the siege of Sarajevo, Hana made her escape by sneaking through the enemy lines at night. After weeks of walking, she eventually became one of the 700,000 Balkan refugees in Western Europe. Accepted for asylum in Sweden in 1995, Hana today is a proud mother of two, a successful businesswoman, and deputy mayor of her district.
Gloria. Darfur, Sudan
Only six months ago Gloria
was eking out a sparse but adequate living in the dusty Darfur
region of western Sudan. Now she’s managing on a handful
of maize a day in a windblown tent in a UNHCR refugee camp
on the Chadian border, waiting patiently for the day when
she can return. It all started when militants rode into her
village, shooting firearms and slashing with machetes. Feigning
death, Gloria waited until nightfall before escaping into
the desert. Walking for days, eating only insects and roots,
stung by the incessant wind-blown sand, she was finally found
by a UNHCR field team. Her ordeal was over at last. Now the
horrors are behind her. But so is her old life, and she misses
it. She lives in hope. One day, she will return. One day.
To view our Portraits of Courage Posters click here.
If you would like to return to view our other World Refugee
Day (WRD) pages please select from the following list:
WRD
page click here
WRD Events page click here
WRD Schools page click here
WRD campaign material click here
Back to top...
|
