Seeking Refuge
When the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was founded in 1950 in the wake of death and destruction wreaked by World War Two, it was expected to operate for three years and then be dissolved. Enter 2022, it’s still at work, with its need felt more than ever. Its role has over the years expanded and its Convention has been growing in its formulations, definitions and clauses. As the refugee crisis has risen dramatically over the past few decades, it’s essential that we have a clear understanding of different aspects and terms involved in the discourse surrounding it, including the number of people who are affected by this crisis, and what’s at stake. There are around 90 million people the world over who have been displaced from their own homeland. Among these 90 million people, 27.1 million are officially recorded as refugees and almost half of them are children. The detailed statistics regarding the refugee crisis can be had on the UNHCR website. We must be invariab...