This Friday, June 20, is World Refugee Day. It is a day to recognize the struggle of some 12 million refugees worldwide who have been forced out of their homes and homelands by fear, conflict, and persecution. It is also an opportunity for many of us to try to appreciate just what it means to have a safe place to go home to, and to remember that no conflict happens in isolation. Insecurity anywhere threatens peace everywhere.
Consider this; there are almost 3 million refugees in Africa, many of whom have escaped one dangerous place, only to find themselves in the heart of another conflict.
Today, I am writing from Chad, a country rocked by its own protracted civil war, internal ethnic tensions, and widespread banditry. Still, it hosts roughly 243,000 Sudanese refugees fleeing indiscriminate attacks, summary executions, bombings, and the destruction of whole villages in neighboring Darfur. My colleague and I met a woman who had fled Darfur just 3 months ago with her four children. She told us how she crossed the border and lived under a tree with seven other families for six weeks before being moved to a refugee camp in eastern Chad. Days before I met this woman, Chadian rebels launched a new offensive in eastern Chad.
The two conflicts are interrelated, and the human fallout can be seen in both countries. Still - inexplicably -- the massive popular and political interest in Darfur stops at the Sudan/Chad border, and the international community has proven itself to be unwilling to take a regional approach to the resolution of these interlinked crises.
The world has chosen to care about Sudan, and yet the ongoing crisis in Chad has been all but ignored by international policy makers.
In contrast to this game of pick-and-choose that the international community has been content to play in they case of Chad and Sudan, the laws that protect refugees -- the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, and the Geneva Conventions - are built on the premise of common humanity, and the equal value of every human life. Similarly, the UN was built on the recognition that violent instability in any country represents a threat to international peace and security.
The world is small. Violence and suffering anywhere will have consequences for us everywhere.
While we recognize the tremendous challenges faced and overcome by refugees in the world today, also take a moment to remember that the modern history of conflict and refugee movements shows us just how interlinked our lives are. Conflict all too quickly reaches out and crosses the lines we have drawn to separate ourselves from our neighbors.
--Erin Weir
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
Chadian rebels move during an attack that led to heavy fighting in the eastern Chadian town of Gos Beida June 14, 2008. Chad accused Sudan's army of attacking a town on ...
