CATEGORY "B" PEOPLE

Refugees and displaced persons mark their sad day every year on 20 June. It was approved by a UN General Assembly resolution in 2000. World Refugee Day testifies to the fact that wars still continue on the planet and that there are international agreements based on the protection of refugees and respect for the spirit and courage of refugees worldwide. About 80 per cent of all refugees in the world are women and children. On this day, we pay a tribute to the willpower of millions of mothers and wives who are trying to maintain their families in the most difficult circumstances.

According to international law, refugees are people who are unable, or do not want, to return to their home country for fear of being persecuted. Refugees are still one of the most urgent problems of the modern world. At present, there are about 20 million refugees and 25 million internally displaced persons in the world. Azerbaijan has more than one million refugees. Our country takes second place in the world for the number of its refugees. The first refugees from Armenia turned up in Azerbaijan in the middle of 1988.

It is not easy for them…

- I live in Baku, but originally I am from Agdam District.

This 11-year-old boy is from a family of displaced persons. He goes to secondary school No 237 in the village of Suvalan. He is cheerful, just like all other children. I wanted to ask him how he was getting on here in the former Dostluq pioneer camp - among ramshackle summer houses and shabby buildings, where children like this boy used to spend their carefree summer days, and among this conspicuous poverty and general helplessness. What is the point? Everything is clear anyway. No-one approaches journalists, with their cameras and recorders, any more. Men sitting on a bench yawn because they are bored, two or three women are washing their clothes standing in a queue near a wash-basin. A baby in a pram, water in glass containers on the window, an empty pool, faded illustrations of the "bright future" on the fence, smiling children who run after the journalists and a heart aches.

- Do you want to go home?

- Where is my home? I don't know. My home is here…

This is how Azerbaijani refugees and displaced persons are living.

Everyone knows that the situation with refugees is very complicated in Azerbaijan. This is acknowledged by the head of the UN High Commission for Refugees in Azerbaijan, William Tall, the regional director of UNICEF for CIS countries, Central and Eastern Europe, Maria Kalivis, and many other foreign representatives. But this does not make their life easier - we mean those who live in camps, tent settlements and decrepit hostels. Neither the adoption of various state programmes, nor international aid, which has shrunk noticeably in the recent period, will change the situation of Azerbaijani refugees for the better. This will continue until Azerbaijani territories are liberated from Armenian separatists.

Recently, William Tall said in an interview with the local media that refugees in Azerbaijan can be divided into three categories. The first category includes displaced persons from Nagornyy Karabakh and surrounding districts. "It is enough to go out of the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, to see the horrible conditions they live in." The second category includes citizens ousted from Armenia in the late 1980s - just before the beginning of hostilities in Nagornyy Karabakh. "We have to point out that this category of refugees is well-naturalized and integrated into Azerbaijani society. They are full citizens of Azerbaijan, which is very pleasing. And finally, the third category comprises refugees from other countries living in Azerbaijan."

Government proposals

A function dedicated to World Refugee Day was held in Baku on 20 June. As was expected, many statements about the unenviable fate of this category of Azerbaijani citizens were made on that day. For example, the chairman of the State Committee for Refugees and Displaced Persons, Ali Hasanov, said that the problem of refugees and displaced persons is one of the main problems for the country. The chairman pointed out that about 100 international organizations are helping refugees in our country. First of all, there are the UN High Commission for Refugees and the UN Food Programme. "In this period, 700m dollars were allocated for projects implemented in Azerbaijan by international organizations. Without aid from these organizations, Azerbaijan would not have been able to overcome its problems," he said.

Hasanov pointed out that the Karabakh conflict is the third longest conflict in the world. "International organizations have adopted a number of resolutions to solve this conflict in the last 15 years, many organizations are still engaged in settling the conflict in a peaceful way, but this has not yielded any results yet," he said.

The chairman also made two proposals to the world community. "The first proposal is the holding of various protests and rallies by refugees and displaced persons." The second is that European countries should prevent the transfer of funds allocated to Armenia by the Armenian diaspora.

Hasanov also said that, at the initiative of the Azerbaijani government, a long-term state programme has been drawn up to return the refugees and displaced persons to the occupied territories. "Final work is being carried out on the programme at the moment. In the near future, the working group will hold a meeting to discuss and adopt a final version. Then this document will be submitted to the government for approval," Hasanov said.

William Tall, who was present at the event, said that Azerbaijan has the highest number of refugees in the world. "But despite this, your country can serve as an example of support and attention to refugees and in creating a modern infrastructure for them," the expert said.

Meanwhile, the Azerbaijani government has expressed its discontent with the reduction of the volume of UN humanitarian aid to Azerbaijani refugees and displaced persons in recent years. Tall explained that this was for two reasons.

"The first reason is that new conflicts have emerged in the world and in this regard, donor countries have lost interest in the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict which has been going on for more than 15 years. The second reason is Azerbaijan's intensive economic growth, which allows the country to use Oil Fund assets and other resources to overcome many problems without aid from donors. But on the other hand, we would welcome an increase in humanitarian aid to Azerbaijani refugees and displaced persons. Look at the conditions in which refugees live in Ganca, Mingacevir and other cities and regions of Azerbaijan. For this reason, donor countries must realize that this problem has not been eliminated in Azerbaijan." We should point out that the level of poverty among refugees and displaced persons in the world is 57 per cent, while in Azerbaijan this indicator is 27-29 per cent. 

From aid to development

While talking to people living in refugee camps, we hear only complaints about difficult living conditions, lack of food and so on.

The head of the press service of the State Committee for Refugees and Displaced Persons, Sanan Huseynov, told R+ that 140,000 refugees and displaced persons get food aid every month. Each refugee is given 5 kg of flour, 1 kg of sugar powder, 1 kg of rice and one bottle of vegetable oil.

Meanwhile, many of us have often seen shops selling food meant for humanitarian aid to refugees. You can identify it by the label "only for refugees". How do these products end up in the shops of Baku? According to Huseynov, all talk about humanitarian aid bypassing its recipients and ending up in shops is not true. Apparently, refugees themselves are engaged in some sort of entrepreneurship, handing over these products to shops not, of course, because they are so wealthy. Rice, flour, sugar and vegetable oil - everyone understands that these products are not enough to meet people's needs. It is clear that you cannot look a gift horse in the mouth. That's why our refugees sell the humanitarian aid they get from the state in order to provide themselves with other products.

But the most terrible thing is that children do not get the food that their growing bodies need. Of course, it is impossible to solve all these problems only by humanitarian aid. For this reason, the government has the task to move on to the principle "from aid to development". This principle, which is widely practised by many international organizations, implies the stage-by-stage reduction of dependence on humanitarian aid by creating sources of income for refugees and displaced persons. To be fair, we have to point out that in recent years the government has taken a number of measures to ensure the employment of these strata of the population. Small businesses open in villages built for refugees, land plots are allocated for agricultural needs and so on. But all this is not enough to reduce dependence on international humanitarian aid which is reducing year by year. Of course, the best aid to refugees and displaced persons would be to return them to their homes, which should concern international organizations more than momentary food support.