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Today, 70.8 million people are forced to leave their homes around the world, more than ever before in modern history. These are people who have fled extreme danger, whether to escape constant bombing, an invading army, gang violence or other life-threatening situations.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) provides medical care to refugees and displaced people around the world. We are increasingly finding that people on the move are trying to survive not only the terrible challenges of migration, but also the harmful deterrence policies put in place by governments trying to override migrants and asylum seekers at all costs. 'asylum.
On the occasion of World Refugee Day, MSF publishes stories of survival – a collection of video testimonials and testimonials from people who risked everything for a chance to get safe. As an organization working with refugees and people on the move, we know that nothing – not a wall, or even an ocean – will ever stop people who are simply trying to survive.
Survival stories
Our teams work in conflict zones where millions of people have been uprooted, including Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In Europe and the Americas, we provide care on some of the most dangerous and deadly migration routes in the world. And we are taking care of a large number of displaced people in the major host countries of the world, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Lebanon, Uganda, and Ethiopia.
Some of the richest countries in the world are abandoning their international legal obligations and long-standing commitments to protecting refugees and asylum seekers. In the United States, Europe and around the world, refugees are less and less welcome. Many governments criminalize migration, emigrate refugees as scapegoats and declare their countries closed to asylum seekers. Security seekers are treated as criminals – as are individuals and organizations that provide life-saving humanitarian assistance.
In recent months, MSF's vital humanitarian aid has been stuck in places such as Nauru and the Mediterranean Sea as a direct result of the government's deterrence policy.
Meanwhile, asylum seekers and refugees are pushed back and confined to low- and middle-income countries, where they often struggle to access the proper care they need. Increasingly, the richest countries in the world are providing financial support and other incentives to countries willing to accept refugees. It is about converting international aid, which should be distributed according to need, into a migration control tool.
What is often lost in the heated political debate around migration are the human beings whose lives have been uprooted by extreme circumstances.
All governments must respect their common international obligations to protect those at risk of violence and persecution. On the occasion of World Refugee Day – and every day – assist the refugees.
In their own words – refugee survival stories
Refugees from around the world describe how they fled from often dangerous situations at home and their journeys in their quest for a new life.
M., 21, from Guinea, now in Italy.
"We were busy organizing a carousel for the kids: I fell off a truck and broke my arm.I spent two days at the hospital and then went back to the hospital. Ex-MO The MSF people helped me get a health card and see a doctor, and then accompanied me to the hospital for operation and physiotherapy. , but they also helped me when I decided to report my employer who had not reported that I had been an accident at work. can do nothing yourself. "
M., 21, arrived in Italy a few years ago from Guinea. He now lives in Ex-MOI, an informal settlement in the city of Turin. At the end of 2016, MSF set up a program to facilitate access to healthcare for residents of one of the largest informal settlements in Italy, the former wholesale market. of fruits in Italy, in Turin.
Here, at least a thousand men, women, and children, mostly from sub – Saharan Africa and the Horn of Africa, lived in inadequate, overcrowded conditions, without heating and frequent breaks in water supply and electricity economic and language barriers to access the national health care system.
MSF operators and volunteers went to the buildings to inform residents of MOI about the rules and procedures for accessing health care through the Italian National Health Service (NHS). When MSF started our intervention, seven out of ten people did not have a health card and eight out of ten did not have a general practitioner at the time of their first contact with MSF.
Thanks to MSF's activity, 469 people have been assisted since the beginning of the project until 31 December 2018. In 2017, an agreement was signed with the local health service ("Azienda Sanitaria Locale – ASL"). ") for the" City of Turin "to consolidate the interventions initiated by MSF.
Two residents of the former MOI, already involved in MSF activities, have been identified as cultural mediators to facilitate the registration procedures with the SSN. As a result, the time required to finalize the recording, with the simultaneous assignment of a GP, has gone from two months to a week.
In 2018, the agreement between MSF and the local health care center was extended to the Municipality of Turin, in order to facilitate the registration necessary to access the SSN and with the additional objective integrate regional social health services for the most vulnerable. sections of the population.
P., 27, from Nigeria and now in Italy.
"I was detained in a detention center in Libya, men and women gathered in the same big room, sometimes they came and took one of the girls, and we prayed to God that they would be brought back. There are people here who take care of me.They come with me to the hospital for my exams.It is my first pregnancy.I am waiting for a girl.I hope that & # 39; 39, she will be able to live in a quieter place than this one My baby will call Testimony. "
At the end of 2016, MSF set up a program to facilitate access to health care for residents of one of the largest informal settlements in Italy, the former fruit market in Turin. At least a thousand men, women and children, mostly from sub – Saharan Africa and the Horn of Africa, lived in inadequate conditions, were overpopulated, without heating and frequently experienced disturbances in water and electricity supplies. and language barriers to accessing the national health system.
MSF operators and volunteers went to the buildings to inform residents of MOI about the rules and procedures for accessing health care through the Italian National Health Service (NHS). At the beginning of our intervention, seven out of ten people did not have a health insurance card and eight out of ten did not have a general practitioner at the time of their first contact with MSF.
Thanks to MSF's activity, 469 people have been assisted since the beginning of the project until 31 December 2018. In 2017, an agreement was signed with the local health service ("Azienda Sanitaria Locale – ASL"). ") for the" City of Turin "to consolidate the interventions initiated by MSF. Two residents of the former MOI, already involved in MSF activities, have been identified as cultural mediators to facilitate the registration procedures with the SSN.
As a result, the time required to finalize the recording, with the simultaneous assignment of a GP, has gone from two months to a week. In 2018, the agreement between MSF and the local health care center was extended to the Municipality of Turin, in order to facilitate the registration necessary to access the SSN and with the additional objective integrate regional social health services for the most vulnerable. sections of the population.
Elisabeth, Adephine and Rachel, from Burundi, now in Tanzania.
Adephine speaks softly. She pulls on her mother Elisabeth, slipping behind her as soon as the gathering of people at this remote MSF health clinic in Tanzania increases.
A refugee camp may limit the movement of people, but it can do nothing to prevent the hopes and aspirations of a 12-year-old girl from coming out of its dark and dark limits. Adephine often leaves her imagination flying outside the Nduta refugee camp in northwestern Tanzania, where she has been living since January 2017, when her mother fled violence in Burundi. In a place far away from the camp, she dreams of becoming a doctor one day.
As she says that, she gains confidence and her eyes look straight into your eyes. In the camp, she takes classes in English, French, basic maths and science, but says with a touch of sadness: "We are often punished at school and I do not have to go to school. do not like that. "
It is not only these daily punishment experiences that threaten to dampen the spirit of children like Adephine, but the hard work of living in a place where rationing is the norm can stifle any trace of ambition. Adephine's father and his two siblings only joined the family in the camp later, when the inscriptions stopped.
"My husband is not registered and so he can not get help," says Elisabeth, Adephine's mother. "We share the food we receive from us". A small piece of land around their modest two-room house in the camp provides some green vegetables and beans. "But that's not enough," says Elisabeth.
More than 230,000 Burundians in three camps in Tanzania will remain dependent on much-needed humanitarian aid until long-term solutions are found. But for now, they are in desperate need of support. This little-talked crisis continues to be miserably funded, revealing major gaps in the humanitarian response. Limited food, poor living conditions and poor wastewater management are a recipe for epidemics. The Nduta refugee camp, where MSF is the main health care provider, has recently experienced a spike in diarrhea cases, but our teams have been able to react quickly and stem the spread of the disease.
Back at the health clinic, Adephine plays with a capsule strip. "When you're sick, you can get treatment," says his mother, Elisabeth. But she would like them to have more variety in the food than they received in the camp. Adephine, her younger sister, Rachel and Elizabeth, seem composed. What the future holds for them remains shrouded in uncertainty. But with those dreams that take you away, there's always that little relief to escape, even briefly, and escape the harsh reality of the camp.
Click to read the story of Elizabeth and her family.
Nunahar and Abdul, Rohingya from Myanmar, currently in Bangladesh.
"We are farmers and we are now a family of 6. Two years ago, the army started arresting all the men in Rakhine, Myanmar." My son Irshadullah was 20 years old at the time. We were all hiding in our homes and going anywhere, not even to get food.One day, the army came to us and started taking with me my 16 year old daughter my son came out of hiding to intervene. "
"They shot him, we had to flee."
"I'm not as old as I am Since I've been diabetic, I've started losing weight My condition has worsened over the last three years My husband and I I'm old, we can not work, it would be nice to cook big fish but it's not possible, we do not have extra money. "
"Today, I have pain, I feel dizzy and my heart beats fast, I have an infected leg."
"It is safe in the camps.We can fast here and pray.At least the Myanmar army will not come in the night to stop us.But Myanmar is my homeland, it is here that all my ancestors are buried, you can all go home, but I can not, we have to stay in a small hut in a camp. "
"I dream of home when I sleep, one day we will return to Myanmar or perhaps another country where there is peace."
Shabbir and Mohammed, Rohingya from Myanmar, currently in Bangladesh.
"I am a farmer.When I was a child, I remember running into the forests to hide from the officials and residents of Rakhine State, Myanmar. money and produce on farms, they also hit us, I flee Myanmar for the third time in my life.I must have been 10 or 11 years old when we fled our homes in the 1970s. stayed here in Kunyapalong for two years before our return, sure to come back. "
"It has always been difficult to live in Rakhine, the crops would be taken away, the government would stop the males and we often had nothing to eat, and we fled to Bangladesh in 1992. There, I was there. I met my future wife, Khatija, I was 23 years old when we got married, my firstborn, Salim, was born in this country.It was only 40 days old when we were fired from force in Myanmar. "
"The Myanmar army often took me from home or to the market.They took us into the jungle and had us carry heavy loads for 7 to 8 days.If I let them go, I'd get beaten up . "
"Life has worsened for over two years and the government has declared that we are all armed extremists and closed the mosque and madrassa. [religious school]. They prevented us from cultivating and limited any culture. We could not make money, people were arrested, killed and our women were raped by a gang. On the morning of Eid Al Azha, they killed my elder, Salim. He was about fifteen years old. "
"We left our house and ran here for our safety.We walked for 14 days before arriving at the camp.I am happy here, I can at least sleep peacefully.My children can study.We do not have any children. We are not allowed to leave the camp and find work for money or new clothes, I wish to return to Myanmar with full citizenship and the right to move freely. "
Marilyn Díaz and her family, Venezuelans now living in Colombia
"We survive here, but we can not know when we will return to our country."
"I'm calling Marilyn Díaz, I arrived in Tibú [in Colombia] a year and a half ago. I went to MSF because it was said that there was a day of "assistance for Venezuelans". I approached them because I had physical problems and my son was practically not eating. I arrived in the morning and had to wait in the afternoon, but they took care of me and my son too. He was underweight; they gave him ready-to-use food and mastered his condition. At first we went there every week, then every two weeks. Fortunately, he is much better now. "
"When we first arrived at MSF, I was pregnant, I was tested, given medicine and vitamins, and ordered to follow up. I was born three days ago and I came back today to be born in the hospital and everything went well. "
"Other Venezuelans scared me by saying that I would not receive care [in Tibú]. They said that I should go to Cúcuta because here they would let me die, because they do not take care of Venezuelans. I have a "special residence permit" but I am still waiting to take out health insurance. When my work pains started, I arrived at the emergency room and fortunately, they treated me quickly and everything went well. "
"I come from the state of Zulia, we decided to come here because the situation was difficult, my husband is a hairdresser and it did not work, his work did not bring him enough money, I also worked to sell little ones I could not even earn a basic salary My husband left first, then he came back to pick me up and I came here with him and our son, I have not been to Venezuela since I would like to go back, but it's just not possible because the situation worsens. "
"That's why I told my dad to come here too.He was carrying passengers, but the time has come when they could not get tires, batteries or spare parts. he works here and sells cafes, he has a workbench around local businesses and fortunately it gives him enough to pay rent and bills. "
"Despite this, he had malaria three times in four months, and each time we came here, they treated us and gave us medicine.The doctor told him that it was transmitted by mosquitoes and had given him a net to protect himself, we think it's because a neighbor stores a lot of water in a tank and there are a lot of mosquitoes, but we can not do anything for the moment.
We survive here, but we can not know when we will return to our country. "
People flee their country for a variety of reasons and, depending on their motives and the perspective of the country in which they are taking refuge, may be classified as migrants or refugees and receive services accordingly. Venezuelans fleeing to Colombia suffer a double blow. In addition to the difficult circumstances that caused them to leave, on arrival they are not insured for health care, food or safety.
This group of people fled a country in crisis for a country beset by armed conflict and other violence. MSF is concerned about the humanitarian needs of people, regardless of international legal definitions. Beyond the "migrant" and "refugee" labels, it is essential that there is an immediate and effective response to the humanitarian needs of this group of people.
Click to learn more about the history of the Diaz family.
Qusay Hussein landed in Austin, Texas, with no idea where he was heading. Blinded by a suicide bombing in Iraq in 2006, he was eager to try to make a new life in the United States. "I needed to go to a country that believes in me," he says. "When people think" refugee ", I am one of them. [But] people do not identify me, I identify myself. "
Luc, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, now in South Africa
Mohammad, from Syria, now lives in Lebanon
Haider, from Iraq, now in Greece
Daniela from Guatemala now lives in Canada
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