World Refugee Day is an international day organised every year on 20 June by the United Nations. It is designed to celebrate and honour refugees from around the world. The day was first established on 20 June 2001, in recognition of the 50th anniversary of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.
The United Nations General Assembly had decided on the date – June 20 to observe World Refugee Day, while adopting Resolution 55/76, on December 4, 2000. For the first time in history, on June 20, 2001, World Refugee Day was celebrated. In 2001, the event marked the 50th anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention which talks about the protection of refugees.
Key Facts
- According to the UNHCR, there are 65.3 million individuals worldwide who have been forcefully displaced.
- UNHCR’s Global Trends Report, which got published on June 18, 2021 reported that 82.4 million people have gotten displaced in 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The United Nations (UN) claims that 79.5 million people have been displaced by the end of 2019. UN also has a backlog of asylum claims of over 1.1 million and are expecting above 300,000 new claims.
- Daily, 42,500 individuals run out of their homes in search of safety within their own country’s or other nations’ borders.
- Developing countries house 86 percent of the world’s refugees.
- Dadaab, Kenya, is home to more than 329,000 people and is the world’s biggest refugee camp.
- Surprisingly, 51% of the world’s 20 million refugees are under the age of 18.
- The first-ever Refugee Team competed, at the 2016 Olympics in Rio.