A refugee is defined by United Nations 1951 Refugee Convention as someone who has fled his or her home and country owing to “a well-founded fear of persecution because of his/her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion”. It is a sad fact that every minute eight people must leave behind everything to escape war, persecution and terror. It is estimated by the UN that 43.3 million people worldwide were forcibly displaced due to conflict and persecution. Even more alarming is the fact that the largest group that is most affected by these tragedies is children. Among refugees, minors constituted 46 per cent of the population. The number of stateless people, who do not have recognized nationality, is estimated to be around 12 million today. Perhaps most worrying is that the problem is growing at unprecedented rates; 2013 has seen the highest number of refugees since the early 1990s.

Many indigenous peoples and minorities have suffered displacement as a consequence of the colonial rule, when maps were drawn by European superpowers not concerned about ethnic and cultural situations in the areas under their control. After the struggles for independence of many new nation states, a vast range of problems that were previously caused and suppressed by the colonialist rulers emerged.

The Crimean Tatars, for example, were displaced from their homeland in Crimea in 1944 by the hardline policies of Joseph Stalin. Due to hunger, thirst and disease, around 45% of the total population died in the process of deportation. The resettlement of the Crimean Tatars began in 1967, but they soon found out that their return was not welcomed by Ukraine. Prior to the deportation, Crimean Tatars primarily resided in the southern resort areas and in urban centers, but because of the high demand on the resort areas on the Black Sea Coast, the Crimean Tatars were forced to settle mainly in the steppe regions. They are continually plagued by hostility, poor health care and housing. In 2006, 10% of Tatar settlements had no access to electricity, 30% had no clean water, and only 25% had access to paved roads. In the last five years up to 1,500 deportees have annually come back to Ukraine, guided by The Bishkek Agreement on the restoration of the rights of deported people and national minorities signed in 1992. The prolonging of the Agreement has recently been jeopardized by economic problems in Ukraine

The Oromo people constitute around 40 percent of the population in Ethiopia. However, the minority Tigray government has persecuted the Oromo people, jailing more than 20,000 suspected Oromo Liberation Front members. As a result, many have been forced to flee, leaving behind family, friends and jobs. Thousands of Oromo now reside in Egypt, where they have been subjected to politically-motivated xenophobic attacks by ethnic Egyptians because of the controversial damming project, Blue Nile, by the Ethiopian Government, which is believed to endanger the water supplies to Egypt. Hundreds of Oromo refugees have staged a sit-in outside the Cairo office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) demanding safety.

In Iraq, different waves of sectarian violence have left approximately 2.1 million Iraqis as internally displaced persons (IDPs), with around three-quarters of them living in protracted displacement. As of the end of 2012, around 467,000 IDPs, returnees and squatters were living in more than 382 informal settlements across the country. Baghdad alone has 125 such settlements.  According to the Ministry of Migration and Displacement (MOMD), 235,610 people returned to their places of origin in 2012 and 1.1 million remained displaced. The official figures, however, do not take into account the displacements that took place before 2006, the fact that not all IDPs are registered as such, and the questionable nature of some returns. These people are experiencing extreme poverty and lack of employment. Ongoing civil war in Syria has resulted in thousands of Syrians fleeing to Iraq, mainly to Iraqi Kurdistan (with an estimated number of 100 000 refugees, as opposed to 10 000 in other parts of Iraq). Iraqi Kurdistan, that has recently made its first independent oil sales and is creating a stable economy focused on tourism, is struggling with such a large number of involuntary migrants.

UNPO wishes strength to all refugees in the world and hopes the international community finds strength and the means to counter this acute problem of our world.