Syrian refugees numbering in the millions fled civil war in their country in the early 2000′s. Many were housed in refugee camps like this camp in Sanliurfa, Turkey.
Credit: © Orlok/Shutterstock

Today, June 20, is World Refugee Day. The United Nations designated the day to honor refugees from around the world. A refugee is a person forced to flee from his or her country and find safety elsewhere. Many refugees seek to escape persecution based on religion, nationality, membership in a social group, or political beliefs. Some flee from war, famine, or other dangers. Many refugees give up everything—home, possessions, and family and friends—to pursue an uncertain future in a foreign land.

The term refugee comes from the French word refugie, which was used to describe Protestant Huguenots who fled France in 1685 because of Roman Catholic persecution. The term displaced person, or DP, is sometimes used interchangeably with refugee.

The flow of refugees from one country to another can present major international challenges. Countries that receive refugees—often called host countries—may have difficulty providing shelter, food, sanitation, and medical treatment for large numbers of people in need. Since 1951, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has helped millions of refugees throughout the world. The UNHCR estimates there were nearly 89.3 million refugees, internally displaced people, and asylum seekers at the end of 2021. This number has increased in 2022 as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine as well as the ongoing crises in Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Myanmar, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Syria. The Rohingya are a people of Myanmar who are not recognized as legal residents and are forced to flee the country for safety and rights.

Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar await rescue after being stranded off the coast of Indonesia. The government of Myanmar limited the rights of its Rohingya population in the 2010′s, leading an increasing number to attempt to flee the country. Myanmar’s government considered them illegal immigrants, although many Rohingya families had lived in the country for decades.
Credit: AP Photo

Under international law, governments in host countries must respect the basic human rights of refugees. Refugees, in turn, are expected to respect the laws and regulations of host countries. The shelter and protection that host countries provide to refugees is called asylum. In host countries, refugees generally have freedom of movement, freedom of religion, and the ability to pursue education and work. However, some refugees have no choice but to stay in crowded refugee camps. Refoulement—that is, the forcible return of refugees to countries where they face persecution—is a violation of international law.

Refugees often face many obstacles and hardships on their journeys. Salva Dut escaped from South Sudan on foot and faced many years in refugee camps before being welcomed in the United States. He works to bring clean water to his home country. Many refugees try to help the community they left in order to make the lives of others safer and healthier.

Many communities plan activities and events on World Refugee Day to support refugees and welcome them. Look up if your community is hosting an event or read about how you can help refugees in your neighborhood.

October 16, 2015

American troops patrol a village along Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan. Department of Defense

Yesterday, October 15, U.S. President Barack Obama announced the extension of the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan. The president’s original plan had been to draw down all but a small number of troops based at the American embassy in Kabul by the end of 2016. In the revised plan, at least 5,500 troops will remain in Afghanistan through 2017. The soldiers will be stationed at Kabul, Bagram, Jalalabad, and Kandahar.

An increase in Islamist Taliban attacks has worsened the security situation in Afghanistan over the past year. The militant Sunni organization held power in Afghanistan from the mid-1990′s until 2001. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States government demanded that the Taliban turn over a terrorist they were harboring, Saudi-born millionaire Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden and al-Qa`ida, his terrorist organization, orchestrated the September 11 attacks. After the Taliban refused to turn over bin Laden, the U.S. invaded Afghanistan and removed the Taliban from power. After that, the Taliban fought a sporadic guerrilla war against U.S. and coalition forces.

The war in Afghanistan became the longest deployment of American combat troops in U.S. history. At the war’s peak in 2010 and 2011, nearly 100,000 U.S. soldiers were serving in Afghanistan. Taliban attacks then dwindled to the point that the war was formally declared over on Dec. 28, 2014. U.S. troops were then steadily reduced, but the Taliban correspondingly grew in strength.

In April 2015, the Taliban began fighting for the northern Afghan city of Kunduz, which they briefly captured in late September. On October 3, while responding to a call for aid from the Afghan Army, the U.S. Air Force accidentally bombed a hospital in Kunduz run by Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), killing 22 people. The growing Taliban threat (along with the emergence of Islamic State terrorists in Afghanistan) created the need for the U.S. military’s extended stay in strength.

December 29, 2014

NATO commanders yesterday formally ended the Afghanistan War during a brief ceremony in the Afghan capital, Kabul. At NATO mission headquarters in the city, the green-and-white flag of the United States-led coalition, known as the International Security Assistance Force, was ceremonially rolled up and sheathed. Then the flag of the new international mission, called Resolute Support, was raised. The ceremony marked the official end of a 13-year combat mission in Afghanistan. Beginning on Jan. 1, 2015, U.S.-led forces in the country will offer only training and support for the Afghan army.

A NATO coalition invaded Afghanistan in 2001 in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States. The intention behind the invasion was to crush the terrorist organization behind the attacks–al-Qa’ida–and to capture its leader–Osama bin Laden. NATO forces quickly brought down Afghanistan’s Taliban-controlled government, which had sheltered al-Qa’ida. However, much of the al-Qa’ida organization escaped into other countries, particularly across the border into Pakistan. (American military forces finally tracked down and killed bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011.)

American troops patrol a village along Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan. After the U.S. military overthrew the Taliban, some members of the Taliban and al-Qa`ida fled to the mountains along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. (Department of Defense)

In a prepared statement, President Barack Obama said, “Today’s ceremony in Kabul marks a milestone for our country. For more than 13 years, ever since nearly 3,000 innocent lives were taken from us on 9/11, our nation has been at war in Afghanistan. Now, thanks to the extraordinary sacrifices of our men and women in uniform, our combat mission in Afghanistan is ending, and the longest war in American history is coming to a responsible conclusion.” The president also paid tribute to the more-than 2,200 Americans killed in the war.

Despite the war, the Taliban continues to launch offensives and carry out terrorist attacks in Afghanistan. “Afghanistan remains a dangerous place,” the president said in his statement, “and the Afghan people and their security forces continue to make tremendous sacrifices in defense of their country.

Additional World Book articles:

• Terrorism: America’s New Enemy (a special report)

September 30, 2014

Ashraf Ghani was sworn in yesterday as president of Afghanistan after months of political tensions. He will lead a coalition government that marks the beginning of a power-sharing pact between Ghani and his chief rival, Abdullah Abdullah. Keeping to the pact, Ghani swore in Abdullah as his chief executive. “I am your leader, but I am not better than you,” Ghani stated before hundreds of dignitaries gathered to witness the inauguration. “If I make mistakes, hold me accountable.”

The inauguration offers some hope of quelling political turmoil in war-wracked Afghanistan. In a presidential election held on April 5, no candidate secured a majority of the vote. In June, the country held a runoff election between Ghani and Abdullah, the two leading candidates. But both claimed victory and accused the other of electoral fraud. The dispute threatened to split Afghanistan’s ethnic groups and trigger violence. United Nations observers were sent to the country to oversee an audit of the ballots from the June vote.

This map shows where the major ethnic groups live in Afghanistan. The contentious presidential election of 2014 threatened to divide Afghans along ethnic lines and increase violence in the nation until a power-sharing pact between the candidates was established. (World Book map)

On September 21, Ghani and Abdullah agreed to a power-sharing compromise, brokered by western representatives, including United States Secretary of State John Kerry. The pact gave the losing candidate substantial influence in the next government. The next day, Afghan election officials declared Ghani the winner. However, under pressure from western diplomats, the officials did not release the final vote totals. Abdullah, the second-place candidate, had insisted that releasing the final vote tally would legitimize an election result that he charged was inherently invalid because of widespread ballot-box stuffing.

Additional World Book articles:

• Afghanistan War

• Taliban

June 18, 2013

NATO forces in Afghanistan today handed over responsibility for security for the whole country to Afghan troops for the first time since NATO forces invaded the country in 2001. At a ceremony in Kabul, the capital, Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced that “our own security and military forces will lead all the security activities.” There are currently 350,000 Afghans in uniform. NATO troops will remain in Afghanistan through 2014, providing military back-up when needed.

In Doha, capital of Qatar, a Taliban spokesperson, Mohammed Naim, declared today in a televised speech that the Taliban is prepared to take the first step toward peace negotiations with the Afghan government. The Taliban, a militant Islamic group that was once aligned with Al-Qa`ida, has tried for decades to establish a united Islamic state in Afghanistan.  Naim noted that their political and military goals “are limited to Afghanistan” and that they did not wish to “harm other countries.”

The Taliban has spent much of the past 12 years hiding in the rugged terrain along the Afghan-Pakistan border, from which they organized military raids into Afghanistan. © Piers Benatar, Panos Pictures

The Taliban announcement is the first indication that the chief antagonists in the Afghanistan War are interested in ending the 12-year conflict. NATO forces, led by the United States military, entered Afghanistan to rout Al-Qa`ida, the terrorist organization that carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. NATO ended up fighting the Taliban. The Taliban, which had gained control of most of Afghanistan in the mid-1990′s, had allowed Osama Bin Laden to establish his Al-Qa`ida headquarters and terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. Driven from power in 2001, the Taliban has been battling NATO forces ever since.

Additional World Book articles:

• Afghanistan 2001 (a Back in Time article)
• Terrorism: America’s New Enemy (a special report)

September 21, 2012

The last of the approximately 33,000 United States troops sent to Afghanistan in a “troop surge” by President Barack Obama in early 2010 have left that war-torn country about one week ahead of schedule, the Department of Defense has announced. The additional troops were posted to Afghanistan to improve the training and performance of Afghan soldiers and to push back resistant Taliban forces in southern Afghanistan. The deployment of the surge troops increased U.S. forces in the international coalition fighting in Afghanistan to more than 101,000. When he deployed the additional troops, President Obama vowed to withdraw them by September 30, 2012.

With the departure of the surge forces, some 68,000 U.S. troops and about 39,000 troops from coalition countries remain in Afghanistan. The United States planned to keep about 70,000 soldiers in Afghanistan until 2014, when the Afghan government was to take over security operations. As of September 21, 1,656 U.S. military personnel had been killed in action in the Afghanistan War, according to the Department of Defense. The number of wounded was 17,619.

Troops from the 101st Airborne Division arrive in Afghanistan in 2002. (Warren Zinn, Getty Images)

A United States-led alliance invaded Afghanistan in 2001 following the September 11 terrorist attacks, the worst acts of terrorism ever carried out against the United States. The U.S. government linked the attacks to al-Qa`ida (also spelled al-Qaeda), an Islamic extremist group that the Taliban, which controlled Afghanistan, had hosted since 1996. Although the Taliban regime was soon overthrown, allied forces struggled to establish security in the country. In 2006, NATO took over peacekeeping and security duties for Afghanistan from the U.S.-led alliance.

Additional World Book articles:

• Afghanistan (2001) (a Back in Time article)
• Armed forces (2001) (a Back in Time article)
• Terrorism: America’s New Enemy (a Special Report)

May 24, 2012

A group dedicated to eradicating polio worldwide launched an emergency plan after recent outbreaks of the disease threatened countries that previously had been free of polio. The group, known as the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, was launched by the World Health Organization (WHO), national governments, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and Rotary International in 1988.

Polio, officially known as poliomyelitis, is an infection caused by a virus. Some people may have only such mild, short-term symptoms as headache, sore throat, and vomiting. Others may develop back and leg pain that leads to permanent paralysis.

In the past, polio epidemics were common throughout the world and greatly feared. However, during the 1950′s, American researcher Jonas E. Salk developed the first vaccine against polio. In 1961, an oral vaccine developed by another American researcher, Albert B. Sabin, was approved. The vaccines quickly became part of the standard vaccination regimen recommended for children. Since then, polio has been nearly eliminated in developed countries. From 1955 to 1957 in the United States, inoculation reduced the incidence of polio by 85 to 90 percent. When GPEI was founded in 1988, more than 350,000 children in more than 125 countries were paralyzed from polio each year. By the first decade of the 2000′s, the incidence of polio had been reduced by 99 percent.

Dr. Salk administers the polio vaccine to a child in 1954 as part of a mass testing program. (Courtesy of March of Dimes Foundation)

In early 2012, health officials at WHO were thrilled to announce that India (the second most populous country in the world) had been free of polio for one year. Nevertheless, polio remains endemic (constantly present somewhere in the population) in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria. In addition, China, Tajikistan, and West Africa reported large outbreaks of polio in 2012, their first cases in many years. Epidemiologists (doctors who study epidemics) determined that the disease had spread into China from Pakistan and into West Africa from Nigeria.

An infant in Afghanistan is immunized against polio through a program administered by UNICEF. (Courtesy of AP/Wide World)

GPEI officials urged donor countries to step up funding so that the group could intensify its efforts to increase vaccination coverage in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria. The group hoped that more technical assistance and greater social mobilization would increase accountability, coordination, and oversight of each country’s vaccination campaign and ease cultural misconceptions that often interfere with immunization.

Additional World Book articles

• Iron lung
• March of Dimes Foundation
• Roosevelt, Franklin Delano
• Fighting a Persistent Foe (a special report)
• Medicine 1955 (Back in Time article)
• Medicine 1959 (Back in Time article)
• Medicine 1960 (Back in Time article)
• Medicine 1961 (Back in Time article)
• Medicine 1963 (Back in Time article)
• Nobel Prizes 1954 (Back in Time article)

May 18, 2012

Leaders of the 28 member nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and other officials from around the world are gathering in Chicago for three days of talks. NATO is a military alliance that seeks to protect the freedom and security of its member countries through political and military efforts.

The primary topic of discussion at the Chicago summit will likely be the alliance’s long-term role in Afghanistan. In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, NATO announced that it considered the attacks against the United States as attacks against all NATO members. A number of NATO member nations subsequently provided assistance in a U.S.-led military campaign against terrorist targets in Afghanistan. In 2006, NATO assumed command from the United States of the international peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan. U.S. President Barack Obama has stated that he intends to withdraw most NATO-led American forces from Afghanistan by 2014.

The flag of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) 

At the end of the Chicago summit, an official communique–or statement endorsed by each of the member states–will define what alliance members agreed to during the meetings. International affairs experts suggest that the communique will outline in broad term the role the United States and Western power will play in Afghanistan over the next two years and beyond. Afghan forces are expected to assume the lead in all combat missions in 2013, with U.S. and NATO forces serving as backup only. It remains unclear how the United States and its European allies will fund the Afghan initiative over the next decade. Experts predict that the current European Union economic crisis will limit Europe’s ability–and willingness–to annually contribute billions of euros to sustain both the Afghan military and NATO backup forces.

Additional World Book articles:

• Afghanistan War
• Al-Qa`ida
• Taliban
• Afghanistan 2001 (a Back in Time article)
• Afghanistan 2002 (a Back in Time article)
• Crisis in the Eurozone (a special report)

May 2, 2012

President Barack Obama, addressing the American public from Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan on May 1, pledged to “finish the job” and end the Afghan War. He noted, however, that the United States would not “cut and run” from Afghanistan and would meet long-term Afghan financial and security needs. He stated that at the forthcoming NATO summit in Chicago the alliance would “set a goal for Afghan forces to be in the lead for combat operations across the country next year. . . . I will not keep Americans in harm’s way a single day longer than is absolutely required for our national security. But we must finish the job we started in Afghanistan, and end this war responsibly.”

Earlier in the day, President Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai signed an agreement broadly outlining the U.S. role in Afghanistan after the combat mission ends, currently scheduled for 2014. The United States went to war in Afghanistan nearly 11 years ago, following the terrorist attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. The aim was to root out al-Qa`ida militants based in Afghanistan and track down the terrorist organization’s leaders who had planned the attacks.

President Barack Obama of the United States (The White House)

President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan (AP/Wide World)

There are currently more than 130,000 troops from 50 countries serving in Afghanistan under NATO command: 90,000 from the United States; 9,500 from the United Kingdom; 4,800 from Germany; and 3,600 from France. At least 2,700 troops from the United States and its partners have died in the war, the majority of them Americans.

Additional World Book articles:

• Osama bin Laden
• Taliban
• Afghanistan 2001 (a Back in Time article)
• Afghanistan 2002 (a Back in Time article)
• Afghanistan 2008 (a Back in Time article)
• Afghanistan 2009 (a Back in Time article)
• Afghanistan 2010 (a Back in Time article)
• Afghanistan 2011 (a Back in Time article)

March 13, 2012

Militants in Afghanistan launched an attack on a delegation of Afghan government officials visiting the site in Panjwai in Kandahar province where an American soldier killed 16 civilians on March 11. The attack on the delegation was made “from several directions,” and Afghan forces returned fire. An Afghan soldier and three militants were killed in the melee. The delegation, which was there to offer condolences to villagers and meet tribal elders, included Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s brothers and several top security officials.

The U.S. soldier said to have carried out Sunday’s attacks–38-year-old staff sergeant–is under arrest. After leaving his base in the early hours, the soldier went on a rampage through village homes, killing as he moved from house to house. Among the 16 dead were 9 children. The sergeant had served three tours of duty in Iraq before being deployed to Afghanistan in December.

In the eastern city of Jalalabad, some 600 students took part today in a rally, condemning the Kandahar attack and chanting “Death to America! Death to Obama!” In Kabul, the capital, the U.S. embassy issued warnings of possible new anti-American reprisals. Anti-U.S. sentiment was already high in Afghanistan in the wake of an incident in February in which Qur’ans were accidentally desecrated by American troops. Although American officials, including President Barack Obama apologized for that incident, they failed to quell a series of protests and attacks that left at least 30 people dead, including 6 U.S. troops.

United States forces in Afghanistan. (Warren Zinn, Getty Images)

On Sept. 11, 2001, members of a terrorist organization called al-Qa’ida launched a series of terrorist attacks against the United States. The United States accused Afghanistan, then under the control of the Taliban, of harboring and assisting al-Qa’ida, which was led by a Saudi national, Osama bin Laden. The United States demanded that the Taliban arrest bin Laden and other Qa’ida leaders and shut down their training camps. When the Taliban refused, the United States and its allies launched a military campaign against the Taliban. In 2006, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) took over peacekeeping and security duties for Afghanistan from the U.S.-led alliance. In 2012, NATO and the U.S.-led alliance continues to fight Taliban and Qa’ida forces in Afghanistan.

Additional World Book articles

• Afghanistan War
• In Harm’s Way: Reporting from the Front Lines (a special report)
• Terrorism: America’s New Enemy (a special report)
• Afghanistan 2001 (Back in Time article)
• United States, government of the 2001 (Back in Time article)