Where’s home?

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) says around 123.2 million people were forced to flee their homes in 2024. Among them were nearly 42.7 million refugees. In addition, there were 73.5 million people displaced within the borders of their own countries (IDPs) and 8.4 million asylum-seekers. This means that there are more refugees than the entire population of Japan or Mexico. Imagine every single person in those countries losing their homes. Unfortunately, decision-making around refugees often lacks the lens of compassion, with even ordinary people seeing them as encroachers instead of recognising that they are a product of imperialist wars imposed by superpowers. The privileged are so comfortable in their tiny bubbles that they rarely pay attention to the hardships faced by these people. What the world has done so far for these people is declare June 20 as World Refugee Day to acknowledge their strength and courage. And this is not limited to migration to other countries. Internal displacement is an equally severe issue that often lacks the attention of world leaders.

In Pakistan, too, the 2005 earthquake and the 2010 and 2022 floods are often remembered as the greatest natural tragedies of our country, but people seldom talk about the people who were forced to move to safer places to protect themselves against the wrath of the nature, losing all that they had in the process. According to statistics, 2.6 million people were displaced or stateless (or returning from forced displacement) within the country at the end of 2024. Also, around 1.7 million people were registered as refugees and asylum-seekers, mostly from Afghanistan. Estimates suggest that $120.2 million is needed in 2025 to ensure that operations and programmes in Pakistan are sustained. For Pakistan, the problem is two-fold. While it hosts external refugees and its urban centres bear the brunt of internal displacements, it is also among the list of nations whose nationals regularly try to move abroad through illegal channels.

In 2023, at least 262 Pakistanis died when a boat carrying migrants capsized in Greece. These people leave mostly because living in the country has become extremely difficult. In a country where basic safety and access to basic utilities is a novelty, many people try all they can to move to a place whose grass seems greener. We cannot continue to keep losing our people because of our leaders’ disconnect from ordinary people. As we fix our internal fissures, it is also important to draw world leaders attention to the recent chaos across the globe. Wars and destruction end in no winners. They only create millions of displaced people whose generation after generation live under the shadows of indescribable trauma and despair. As the world nears a large-scale war in the Middle East, it is time countries come together to de-escalate the situation and stop posing threats to the sovereignty of independent states. Only then can we expect the number of refugees to come down; otherwise, we will keep running short of countries for the many refugees created by war and destruction.