World refugee day 2011

The United Nations Refugee Agency commemorates World Refugee Day on June 20 each year and is dedicated to raising awareness of the situation of refugees throughout the world. Refugees are people who flee war, conflict, human rights abuses and persecution.

KL Sentral had afternoon events on 19/20th June to salute the day. The event started with Markiza and Peter Brown plus one doing 3 songs.
Markiza's group - Markiza in middle, on right is Peter Brown

Then there were several dances by children from various refugee groups in Malaysia.

15th century dance

Kachins (above and below)

Myanmar girl dancing to Waka Waka -

Refugee children watching -

The MC's interacted with the crowd, asking questions about refugees etc -

There were stalls selling products made by refugees, as well as exhibitions.

There have been some famous refugees - Marlene Dietrich -

Bob Marley and Einstein

Some sad facts about refugees in Malaysia :

There are some 93,600 refugees & asylum-seekers registerwd with UNHCR.
85,800 from Myanmar (Chins, Rohingyas, Muslims, Mon, Kachins and others).
Others from Sri Lanka, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan.

19,000 are children below 18.

It is interesting that the majority of refugees now are from Myanmar. Years ago the majority were from Vietnam.

I remember on my visit to Cherating as a backpacker in the late 1980s there was a UNHCR camp for Vietnamese refugee just across the river from Cherating. Backpackers used to go there and help the refugees by giving them small items and take letters etc from them to post. The camp was opened in the late 1970s.

Vietnamese refugees also went to some of the islands such as Bidong (south of Redang). In the Vietnam War when Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese Army, many people fled by boat. These "boat people" first arrived on Malaysian shores in 1975. A few years later a camp was set up, housing about 40,000 people at one time.
Sri Lankans -

Burmese Refugee Org (above)

Burmese hairdo

I frequently drive through Bukit Petaling area and pass the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) HQ. There always used to be lots of people hanging around outside but I haven't seen this in recent years.

© Liz Price
No reproduction without permission