UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 26 — UN High Commissioner for Refugees Barham Salih said Friday that the most durable solution to forced displacement is peace.
Humanitarians will continue to do their part: protecting people forced to flee, standing with the countries and communities that receive them, and pursuing every opportunity for solutions. But success means more than that, he told the UN Security Council in his first briefing as high commissioner.
“Success cannot be that we become better at keeping people alive through another year of war. It cannot be that a refugee camp established in response to an emergency is still there 50 years later. And it cannot be that children inherit displacement from their parents,” he said. “Success must ultimately mean creating the conditions in which people no longer need us.”
Seventy-five years ago, the Refugee Convention established a promise to protect people when peace fails, Salih said. “We must keep that promise. But our collective ambition must also be greater: to prevent displacement where we can, resolve it where it has occurred, and create the conditions in which people can rebuild their lives in safety and dignity. Ultimately, the most durable solution to forced displacement is peace.”
Members of the Security Council carry a unique responsibility to help make peace possible, he said. “For the millions of people forced from their homes — and the millions more who should never have to flee — I urge this great council to use that responsibility.”
“Today, more than 117 million people have been forced to flee their homes by conflict, violence, persecution, and other threats to their safety,” Salih said, adding that forced displacement reveals something fundamental about the state of the world.
Displacement is rapidly outpacing solutions. Conflicts are multiplying. Many are becoming more protracted. Political solutions remain elusive. And millions of people who fled what they hoped would be a temporary crisis find themselves displaced for years, sometimes for generations. This is not only a humanitarian challenge. It is fundamentally a challenge to international peace and security, said Salih.
Humanitarian organizations deal every day with the consequences of conflict. They protect people who are forced to flee. They support countless countries and communities that receive them, and work to help people find a way out of displacement. But humanitarians cannot create peace, he said.
The UN Charter entrusts the Security Council with a unique responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. That responsibility matters profoundly to the millions of refugees, the internally displaced, and stateless persons that humanitarians serve.
Salih asked the Security Council to use its political influence to end the conflicts and sustain peace processes, to protect civilians and uphold international humanitarian law, to preserve asylum and uphold the principle of non-refoulement, to invest in solutions from the outset, and to support refugee-hosting countries and countries of return. (Namibia Daily News / Xinhua)
