wfn.org | Year of Uprooted People

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS" by SUSAN PEEK on Aug. 11, 1991 at 13:58 Eastern,
about FULL TEXT RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (3442 notes).

Note 3439 modified by UMNS on Feb. 18, 1997 at 09:09 Eastern (3604
characters).

SEARCH: refugees, displaced, migrants, World Council of Churches
Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency of
the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., New
York, and Washington.

CONTACT:  Linda Bloom                             85(10-71B){3439}
          New York (212) 870-3803                    Feb. 17, 1997
      

Suffering of uprooted people
is growing concern of churches

               by United Methodist News Service

     In every region of the world today, war, persecution, natural
disasters and economic calamities are driving people to flee their
communities or their countries.
     The result is about 45 million "uprooted people" -- more than
half of whom can be found on the continent of Africa.
     Concern over the suffering of these people has led members of
the World Council of Churches (WCC), including the United
Methodist Church, to declare 1997 as the Ecumenical Year of
Churches in Solidarity with Uprooted People.
     The statement adopted by the WCC's Central Committee, "A
Moment to Choose: Risking to be with the Uprooted People,"
challenges churches to "address uprooted people as a major crisis
of our time and to take bold actions to become the church of the
stranger by welcoming and standing with refugees, migrants and
other displaced people."
     Those actions include upholding life and human dignity of
uprooted people by offering shelter, providing sponsorship and
extending sanctuary; working for justice and peace through study,
peacemaking, promotion of better economic and social conditions,
and creation of sustainable conditions in people's homelands; and
creating community with the uprooted by responding to spiritual,
social and material needs, encouraging participation in church and
supporting a diverse society.
     The movement of peoples always has been a part of human
history. In contemporary times, the uprooted "are those forced to
leave their communities," according to the WCC statement, "those
who flee because of persecution and war, those who are forcibly
displaced because of environmental devastation and those who are
compelled to seek sustenance in a city or abroad because they
cannot survive at home."
     While the plight of refugees -- people fleeing from their
homelands to other countries -- has been long documented, more
uprooted people are now categorized as "displaced," according to
Lilia Fernandez, executive secretary for refugee ministries,
United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR). Those people have
been forced to leave their homes or communities but remain inside
their native country.   
     The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
estimates more than 14 million refugees and at least 30 million
displaced people.
     Examples of that internal movement are found in UNHCR's
statistics for January 1995, which estimated 1.28 million
displaced persons in Bosnia-Herzegovina; 782,000 in Sierra Leone;
663,100 in Azerbaijan; 332,200 in Afghanistan and 303,800 in
Angola.
     "The number of displaced worldwide is increasing," Fernandez
said. "[But] they do not have the same protection and benefits
that refugees have."
     She explained that -- unlike with refugees -- UNHCR has no
mandate to work with displaced people.
     The challenge for churches to work with and minister to
uprooted people is even more crucial "as government policies
become more restrictive and public hostility against foreigners
intensifies in every region," the WCC statement declares.
                              #  #  #

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