20th Of June

Currently, in the world there are more than 65 million people who have had to leave their homes. Few have settled in new countries. Some are living in refugee camps, waiting for the right time to be safe and to go home or to be resettled in a different country. Today, 20th of June is recognised as World Refugee Day. The first was on 20th June 2001 and it’s been celebrated every year since then. And so on this day, we celebrate the courage and resilience of refugees and join together in our support for displaced people around the world. Also, several events are organized in recognition of this day. An event was organised in Mumbai, where Bollywood actor and UNHCR celebrity supporter John Abraham interacted with young refugees from Afghan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Somalia. He also addressed the youth about empowerment, importance of education for meaningful life.

Delhi, also marked the Refugee Day with a youth meet was organised in earlier this week featuring wide range of activities of UNHCR. This includes film screening, painting exhibition, dance programmes and other traditional cultural activities. In India, Annual World Refugee Day campaign was launched earlier this week at Don Bosco school in the national capital. The theme of the celebrations this year was "With courage let us all combine". It aimed to bring the public closer to the human side of the refugee stories by sharing stories of hope and resilience of displaced people and showing them as ordinary humans living in extraordinary circumstances.

There are almost 32,000 persons of concern to UNHCR in India, and amongst them 26,500 are recognised refugees and rest are currently registered as asylum seekers, mostly from Afghan and Myanmar from countries other than Somalia, Iraq and Iran, it added.

As per reports, Pakistan is the biggest host country of refugees, while it is also true that Afghanistan and Syria are the biggest sources of refugees. The UNHCR observe World Refugee Day as a time to donate to its campaign to provide resources for refugees and as an opportunity to spread awareness about the situations of refugees globally and hopefully inspiring further compassion and action.