An unprecedented number of children will spend Christmas displaced from their homes as the globe faces four “enormous, ongoing and mostly ignored” crises, according to Tim Costello, chief advocate at World Vision Australia.
Rev Costello said that as Australians prepare for “feasting and festivities”, they should remember the more than 33 million children who have no place to call home this Christmas.
“At a time when we remember the story of a child born in a manger, let’s not forget the children who are right now sheltering in tents, on fields and roadsides, in the nowhere land between countries,” he said.
Conflicts have caused the displacement of more than 600,000 refugees from Myanmar in the past four months while there are currently 11 million Syrians displaced from their homes, 4.7 million displaced from their homes in the Democratic Republic of Congo and more than four million South Sudanese who have had to flee their property.
In the DRC, Rev Costello said that children are the “main victims of tribal and ethnic violence”.
“The scale of the DRC crisis is comparable with Syria – yet no organisation in the field can possibly deliver the full response that’s required because of access and funding issues. World Vision workers are concerned that former child soldiers, who made up about 60 per cent of militia fighters, will re-join the fighting because there’s nowhere else to go. It’s absolutely paramount that we immediately provide adequate psychosocial support and reconnect these children with education.”
Rev Costello said that, for him, the year was marked by the “shocking extent” of violence suffered by the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar.
“Since violence broke out in Rakhine State on August 25, the endless stream of refugees has created impossible conditions in Bangladesh, itself an impoverished and overcrowded country,” he said. “I have visited many terrible refugee camps but this was like walking through the gates of hell.”
World Vision are calling on the Australian Government to increase its refugee intake to 42,000 and restore the aid budget to its previous levels with Rev Costello saying that from its “enviable position of peace and prosperity, Australia could do so much more to shoulder the burden created by forced migration”.
“We must work together to make sure these people protected and cared for while solutions are pursued.”
To donate to World Vision Australia’s Myanmar-Bangladesh Refugee Crisis appeal, follow this link.