World Refugee Day: EU Commissioner Louis Michel highlights plight of returnees

As the international community marks today World Refugee Day, Louis Michel, European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, welcomed the fact that the number of refugees throughout the world continues to decrease - being at its lowest point in 25 years. But he emphasized the daunting challenge of providing support to the returnees and facilitating their integration into local communities in their homelands.

Last week, Commissioner Michel and António Guterres, United Nations' High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), lead a joint mission in Tanzania and Burundi to spotlight the plight of the returnees. They got a first-hand look at major refugee and repatriation operations in the Great Lakes region. Mr. Michel and Mr. Guterres want to underscore the need for sustained international involvement in helping nations emerging from conflict.

Back from this mission, Commissioner Michel said: "At this very moment, hundreds of thousands of people are making the courageous choice to return to their homelands in Burundi or Congo. They hope they can rebuild their lives after years of suffering and exile. This is good news but it is also a huge and complex challenge. We are committed to providing the necessary support in the areas of return to rebuild basic services such as health care, primary education, shelter, and water sanitation facilities through grass-root community-based programmes to ensure a successful reintegration in the local socio-economic fabric."

During their mission, Mr. Michel and Mr. Guterres met refugees in Tanzania who are going back to Burundi and to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Tanzania shelters around 350,000 refugees - the largest number in Africa. 117 00 people remain internally displaced in Burundi, a country which the UNHCR estimates also hosts 30,000 Congolese refugees. They also visited transit camps for returnees in Burundi.

This joint mission of Mr Michel and Mr Guterres underlines the strong partnership between the Commission and UNHCR to assist and protect refugees. The Commission is a key donor to UNHCR. To assist and protect the estimated 19 million people uprooted in the world today, the European Commission and the UNHCR signed a strategic partnership agreement in February 2005.

The Commission's Humanitarian Aid department considers the UNHCR as one of its key-partners. It has funded UNHCR activities worth €134 million between 2003 and 2005. The money is either for concrete operations, like the running of a refugee camp, or for core-mandate activities, such as a €5 million donation from the Commission for protecting refugees and an emergency response mechanism. In 2005, the Commission funded UNHCR activities for a total amount of € 53 million.

For TV correspondants:

A «BEST OF» L. Michel and A. Guterres visiting refugee camps in Tanzania will be available on EbS from 16h CET (please check EbS schedule). To be downloaded at:

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http://ec.europa.eu/avservices/video/video_prod_fr.cfm?type=shot_info


For further information:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/echo/index_en.htm

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• EU Presidency Statement - UN High Commissioner for Refugees (7/11/2006)
• EU Commission Vice-President Frattini: Statement for World Refugee Day  (20/6/2006)
• EU Commissioner Michel and UNHCR High Commissioner Guterres to meet refugees in Tanzania and Burundi  (14/6/2006)
• EU Commission approves €4 million to strengthen refugee protection (9/3/2006)
• Algeria: EU Commission provides emergency aid for Sahrawi refugee camps  (14/2/2006)
• Commission allocates €9.3 million to aid Sahrawi refugees (10/8/2005)