Pope appeals for world’s refugees

(June 20, 2007) Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday urged world leaders to take in and care for refugees who seek asylum in their countries. Speaking during his weekly general audience of Wednesday, the day the United Nations observes World Refugee Day, the Holy Father said the annual recurrence aims to draw attention to the plight of “those forced to flee their countries because of real danger to life.”
Speaking in Italian, he said that “welcoming refugees and offering them hospitality is a dutiful gesture of human solidarity so that they don’t feel isolated because of intolerance and indifference.”
Furthermore, he said, for Christians it a concrete way of showing evangelical love. Pope Benedict heartily wished that these brothers and sisters greatly tried by suffering be guaranteed asylum and the recognition of their rights; and he invited leaders of nations to offer protection to those who find themselves in such delicate situations of need.
The World Refugee Day 2007 was observed around the world on the theme “Intolerance isolates.” The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) marks World Refugee Day on June 20 each year, to create awareness of the plight of refugees, and the intolerance they often face in countries where they seek asylum. According to a report released by UNHCR, for the first time since 2002 the number of refugees in the world has increased. The report said that by the end of 2006, there were 9.9 million people forced to leave their countries due to war, poverty and natural disasters.
The increase in the number of refugees is largely due to the situation in Iraq, which by the end of 2006 had forced up to 1.5 million Iraqis to seek refuge in other countries, particularly Syria and Jordan. Iraqi refugees are second only in number to Afghanis which amounts to 2.1 million people. Other groups include Sudanese (686,000) and Somalis (460,000). UNHCR figures do not include some 4.3 million Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian Occupied Territories, who fall under the mandate of a separate agency, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). If added, the total number of refugees under both agencies' mandates would be over 14 million.