World refugee day: less and less funds for aid, more and more people on the run

Welcoming and protecting is not something that has to do only with a moral duty but it is also a legal obligation. He reiterated it, on the occasion of the World refugee daywhich is celebrated on June 20, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe Alain Berset: «This obligation is enclosed in international and European lawfrom the 1951 refugees Convention to the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. Our tenacious commitment in favor of these principles is what unites the Council of Europe and will continue to shape the democratic future of Europe “.

Wars, violence, persecutions, but also political instability and economic crises force millions of people to leave their homes, looking for salvation, protection, future. According to the new report Global Trends Published by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), at the end of April 2025 the people forced to escape the world 122.1 million. A data in continuous increase for over a decade. And while many continue to ask: how many we can welcome them, the numbers say, once again, that 73% of the world’s refugees are welcomed in low and medium -sized countriesWhile 67% remain in neighboring countries with crisis areas. I am Chad, Ethiopia, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Countries often forgotten, fragile themselves, to guarantee refuge for millions of people.

And while the topicality of every day shows wars and people on the run, Restagnano humanitarian funds. Global funding returned to 2015 levels, while the needs have doubled. A scissor that leaves entire communities without food, children without school, women without protection. A humanitarian disaster fueled by indifference. “We live in a period of intense volatility in international relations with modern war that creates a fragile and heartbreaking panorama, marked by an acute human suffering,” he commented Filippo Grandi, a high commissioner of the United Nations for refugees. “We must double our efforts to look for peace and find lasting solutions for refugees and other people forced to escape from their homes.” The photograph of the relationship shows a wounded and dispersed humanity. Sudan has exceeded Syria as a country with the largest number of displaced people (14.3 million), but also Afghanistan (10.3 million) and Ukraine (8.8 million) remain at the top of the list. Another figure reports the slow return home of almost 10 million people in 2024, including 1.6 million refugeesthe highest figure of the last twenty years. But often they are forced, non -voluntary returns: as in the case of many Afghan.

In our country, at the end of 2024 there were about 150 thousand beneficiaries of international protection, 207 thousand asylum seekers And Over 163 thousand Ukrainian citizens welcomed with temporary protection. Italy, albeit between difficulties and controversies, It remains one of the main UNHCR donors But in the public debate the refugee is still seen as a threat, a cost, a problem. In reality, as Chiara Cardoletti, representative of the UNHCR for Italy, recalled, “in this time the pain of others may seem distant, but in reality it touches us closely. We live in a world where what happens elsewhere has consequences on us too “. And every cutting to aid, in addition to being inhuman, is a renunciation of the prevention of conflicts, the protection of human rights, to global stability.