DESPERATE REFUGEES

The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted everyone’s life, and at the same time has exacerbated structural inequalities in vulnerable groups that had been crying out for help even beforehand: notably refugees and internally displaced persons.

According to UNHCR, 79.5 million people worldwide have been forced to flee their homes.

Many of them remain in overcrowded refugee camps, such as Greece's largest camp Moria on the island of Lesbos where 7,000 refugees live—or rather survive without minimum standards of water supply, sanitation and hygiene. Everybody there is awaiting the outcome of their asylum claims without result, with hunger, uncertainty and now the pandemic weighing on them.

In this place children cut their own bodies and openly say they want to die. In February, a refugee wo - man, eight months pregnant, set herself on fire after being told that her relocation to Germany was being postponed. Instead of receiving attention for the mental impacts she had experienced, this 26-yearold woman is charged with aggravated arson and destruction of public property! On the one hand, people claim to seek solutions for the refugee’s plight, while on the other hand, they punish them.

Despite the efforts of international organizations such as UNHCR to assist refugees and internally displaced persons, the challenges exceed their capacity. What is required is a more equitable sharing by countries of the burden and responsibility for facing this crisis.

Elida Guerra Vilcapoma Lima, Peru