World Refugee Day: Ghosts of Home

바카라�My house is a watchman's hut

Made of sticks and reeds.

Does my status satisfy you?

I am a name without a surname.

Put it on record.

I am an Arab.바카라�

- Identity Card

Mohammad Dariwsh바카라�s poem became a protest song.  He was born in the village al-Birwa, which was later razed and depopulated by the Israeli army. He wrote much about the occupation of his native land, spent many years in exile in Beirut and Paris, and died in the United States 바카라�  away from his homeland. 

What is a homeland? For the refugee, it is a ghost that walks beside them 바카라� not quite gone, not quite within reach. How does one leave behind a place that is a part of their being, or the neighbours they grow up around? The eternal baggage of nostalgia lingers in the faintest memories바카라� the green of familiar leaves, the scent of rain on dry earth, the corner shop that knew your name.

As of now 바카라� more than one in every 67 people on Earth has been forced to flee their homes.

As of the end of 2024, 123.2 million people globally had to flee their homes, due to persecution, conflict, violence or human rights violations, according to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR).

Among them, nearly 42.7 million were refugees. In addition, there were 73.5 million people displaced within the borders of their own countries. 8.4 million were asylum-seekers. 

As many as 4.4 million people have become stateless. They are either denied their nationality, or lack access to basic rights such as education, health care, employment and freedom of movement. 

In Sudan, a civil war began in April, 2023. It has displaced 2.6 million people within the country, and 7,38,000 others who fled to neighboring countries by July 2023.

Beyond the statistics lie the truths 바카라� stark and human. Facts that speak of people forced to abandon everything they have ever known, fleeing homes that may have sheltered their families for generations. 

They often leave in the dead of night, like fugitives of wars and conflicts they never asked for, holding their hastily packed lives in plastic bags in one arm and their children in another. They cross seas in fragile rafts that splinter and sink.

Everyday, about 100 refugees are being pushed back from FYR Macedonia to Greece.

While world leaders 바카라�closely monitor the situation,바카라� displaced people face legal limbo 바카라� spending years, sometimes lifetimes, in foreign lands, pleading their cases before indifferent bureaucracies. All the while, they long not just for safety, but for the simple intimacy of home.

As of the end of 2024, 2,40,000 refugees and asylum-seekers lived in India, the majority originating from Myanmar and Afghanistan. Myanmar바카라�s humanitarian crisis worsened since the February 2021 coup, adding to the long-standing Rohingya refugee crisis, with most now sheltered in Bangladesh.

There are at least 2.6 million registered Afghan refugees in the world, of whom 2.2 million are registered in Iran and Pakistan alone.

Over 70% of the refugees are hosted in low and middle-income countries, often in urban areas. Children  바카라� 47 million of them 바카라� face disrupted access to health, education and protection. 

The Gaza Strip has a population of approximately 2.4 million people, including some 1.6 million Palestine Refugees. Nearly one-third of the registered Palestine refugees live in 58 recognized Palestine refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, the Syrian Arab Republic, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Refugees spend a lifetime trying to rebuild their lives 바카라� yet it is often not enough. Caught between policies, identity, nationality, and immigration laws, their fresh starts are met with suspicion, exclusion or performative inclusion that offers no real belonging.

Approximately 2500 alleged immigrants from Bangladesh have been pushed back by the Indian authorities within a month and a half, amid a surge in crackdown on undocumented migrants.

In 바카라�Displaced or Deported: The Human Cost Of Immigrant Crackdown바카라�, Abhijay Vaish writes about the unified-Pakistan's partition in 1971, post which, millions of refugees from East Pakistan moved to India with many crossing the border into states like Assam and West Bengal. This influx has been an issue of contention for decades, especially in Assam. 

This World Refugee Day, we look at Outlook Magazine바카라�s August 1, 2023, issue titled, 바카라�Who Is A Refugee?바카라�, Snigdhendu Bhattacharya writes, All Refugees Are Not Equal In India. 

바카라�Tibetan Buddhists are among India바카라�s most privileged refugees. They have, in many cases, almost become Indians. As of 2009, 1.1 lakh Tibetan refugees lived in 45 settlements spread across 10 states but many also lived outside these settlements. They do not face prohibitions in movement or income opportunities, unlike Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka.바카라�

Women and girls make up around half of any refugee, internally displaced or stateless population. Already facing the regular gender bias,  these issues only get exacerbated when the homeland is lost. 

In Orphans Of The Partition: The Perilous Journey Of Women, Asha Hans, writes about a journey of a pregnant woman during the Partition of India and Pakistan. 

바카라�If you look into the notion of refuge for women during Partition, the questions that arise after this atomised acc­ounting of history by Bharati were of the welfare of thousands of widows, women abducted and orphans. It raised questions regarding which nation owned the women. What was their nationality?바카라�

In How Language Barricade Impacts Refugees In A Faraway Land, Priyanka Borpujari explores how language barriers can escalate into violence and exclusion for refugees, turning everyday communication into a challenge.

 바카라�Some cultures communicate loudly, others communicate in lower tones, and this had led to a fight. Tiny moments of miscommunication because of the linguistic and cultural divide revealed how policies do not account for people바카라�s different backgrounds. There could be better ways of ensuring that people with similar backgrounds are sent to groups within the camps where they would be welcomed linguistically.바카라�

In a world that draws and redraws borders around belongings, refugees live between memory and survival 바카라� carrying absent homes in their hearts while building lives in lands that still call them 'other.'