June 20 is World Refugee Day – and even though this sounds like a holiday, there is unfortunately little reason to celebrate. On the contrary, World Refugee Day offers an occasion to conduct a critical stocktaking and provide a reminder that millions of people around the world are unfortunately not only fleeing, but also often are not receiving the protection that they are actually entitled to.
In 2024, the number of refugees reached a new and historic peak: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that some 120 million people globally are fleeing violence, repression and war. The largest refugee crisis continues to be caused by the civil war in Syria: an estimated 13.8 million Syrians have been displaced inside and outside of Syria, with over 3 million in Turkey alone. In 2023, the conflict in Sudan as well as the Israel-Gaza War triggered new refugee movements: at the end of 2023, more than 10 million Sudanese and 1.7 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip were deemed displaced. In addition, people continue to flee Ukraine, just as over 9 million people have done since the beginning of the Russian war of agression on Ukraine: this corresponds to the largest refugee crisis in Europe since the Second World War. A majority of them have still not returned. The UNHCR currently estimates that there are still 6.5 million Ukrainians outside of Ukraine, with about 6 million in Europe. Within the EU, Germany remains the country that accepts the most refugees, including over 1.1 million refugees from Ukraine alone. Over 350,000 requests for asylum were issued in Germany in 2023.
On the occasion of World Refugee Day, the UNHCR provides a reminder that all human beings who are forced to flee have a right to protection and safety and to be treated with dignity – everywhere. This right, however, continues to not be something that can be taken for granted. Many refugees cannot rely on legal security in their receiving countries. The legitimacy of the flight and the stay are often questioned and the inspection of those seeking protection or the granting of protection is often refused. This also takes place at the borders of Europe and, in a clear violation of the Geneva Refugee Convention and European law, are refused the right to apply for asylum – even court decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) as well as the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) have until now not been sufficient to move multiple EU nations to correctly apply European law, accept requests for asylum and to end their systemic, violent pushback practice against refuguees.
In addition, refugees in receiving countries continue to encounter hostility, skepticism, exclusion, discrimination and injustice, which recently has even increased. Calls for returns to countries that continue to be unsafe, such as Afghanistan and Syria, or for a shift of asylum proceedings to third-party countries are growing increasingly loud, also in Europe, also in Germany. The election campaign for the EU Parliament made it painfully clear the extent to which rhetoric hostile to migrants and refugees has a shocking appeal to Europeans. As a result, we are still far removed from having a wonderful way of dealing with the topic of exodus and with refugees.
This means that it is even more important that we do everything to ensure that we do not move even further from this goal and that we provide refugees with unrestricted protection – after all, there will continue to be flight, be it from violent conflicts, repression or, in the future, increasingly from climate disasters. In doing so, it is up to us to decide and play a part in determining whether World Refugee Day will continue to be a day of mourning in the future, as it is now, or if at some point it will become a holiday on which we celebrate solidarity and humanity and examples for the positive contributions and the enrichment that refugees make in their receiving countries can be honored.