World Refugee Day

World Refugee Day is organised every year on 20th June by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and is dedicated to raising awareness of the situation of refugees worldwide. To mark this occasion. The theme for World Refugee Day 2019 is #StepWithRefugees — Take A Step on World Refugee Day.

A refugee is a person who has been forced to leave his/her homeland and is unable to return because she or he has experienced persecution or has a well-founded fear of persecution. Persecution can be related to race, nationality, religion, political opinions, or membership in a particular social group.

Types of refugees
Asylum Seekers-Asylum seekers say they are refugees and have fled their homes as refugees do, but their claim to refugee status is not yet definitively evaluated in the country to which they fled.

Internally Displaced Persons-Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) are people who have not crossed an international border but have moved to a different region than the one they call home within their own country.

 Stateless Persons-Stateless persons do not have a recognized nationality and do not belong to any country. Statelessness situations are usually caused by discrimination against certain groups. Their lack of identification — a citizenship certificate — can exclude them from access to important government services, including health care, education, or employment.

Returnees– Returnees are former refugees who return to their own countries or regions of origin after time in exile. Returnees need continuous support and reintegration assistance to ensure that they can rebuild their lives at home.

Imagine being forced to flee your country to escape to safety. If you were lucky you had time to pack a bag. If not, you simply dropped everything and ran. The plight of refugees is a world crisis—at any given time, millions of people have been forced from their homes.

Refugees face many difficult challenges. When they leave their homes, they leave behind family and friends, jobs, and most of the things they own. Every aspect of their lives is altered. The trip can be dangerous, especially if their country is at war, and the places they end up staying might not be much better off than the places they left. Many refugees end up living in camps where life is difficult. They must rely on aid groups to provide them with their daily needs. It can be months or even years before they can return to their homes.