Friday September 4, 2015
ISLAMABAD: Somali refugees gathered outside the National Press Club on Thursday to protest against the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for, what they said, ignoring them.
Amongst their grievances was the lack of higher education opportunities for Somali refugees – unlike Afghan refugees, who are allowed access to higher education in Pakistan.They stated that the cultural and language barriers, security issues outside Pakistan’s major cities, and racial discrimination were amongst the problems facing Somali refugees in Pakistan. The refugees demanded resettlement in another country, where they should have access to better opportunities.
UNHCR spokesperson Duniya Aslam told Dawn that of the 60 million refugees in the world, the UN can only settle one per cent of them due to the quotas set up by countries like Australia and the United Kingdom.
“Our first priority is to send the refugees back to their countries, like Afghan refugees are going. However, some refugees, like Syrians, cannot go back to their countries so whenever they come out of the country they are declared refugees,” she said.
“The second option is to settle refugees in the country where they are, but Pakistan doesn’t have any refugee laws and it does not give citizenship to refugees. So we use the option of third country settlement. Only extremely vulnerable refugees are considered for the migration,” she said.
“There are around 700 Somali refugees in Pakistan. However Pakistan is not the only country in which refugees are living. We have to create balance among refugees living all over the world,” she said.