{"id":19868,"date":"2026-07-28T13:17:44","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T08:17:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=19868"},"modified":"2026-07-28T13:17:44","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T08:17:44","slug":"6-refugees-speak-out-as-un-backed-treaty-to-help-people-fleeing-war-marks-75-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=19868","title":{"rendered":"6 refugees speak out as UN-backed treaty to help people fleeing war marks 75 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"prism-article-body\">\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \"><span class=\"oyrPY qlwaB AGxeB  \">GENEVA &#8212; <\/span>Tuesday marks the 75th anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, which was born after the ravages of World War II to help people fleeing war, violence and persecution. Proponents say the treaty has saved millions of lives. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Respect for it, though, has <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/asylum-refugees-sudan-chad-greece-europe-54c6cb76a18a97bec3eac944d8baf9d5\">come under strain<\/a>: Some countries have denied entry to asylum seekers. <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/trump-immigration-asylum-lawsuit-courts-d325740dd73f425309c66f89e670fd8f\">Under U.S. President Donald Trump<\/a>, the United States has led a policy of sending asylum seekers to third countries \u2014 upending years of U.S. policy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">More than 41 million refugees remain forcibly displaced: Nearly 70% are hosted by low- and middle-income countries. The ranks could grow: The International Committee of the Red Cross counts more than 130 armed conflicts around the globe. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The convention took key steps toward defining what a refugee is, laying out their rights, and establishing standards of treatment. Nearly 150 countries are parties to the convention.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cIt codified a simple but powerful principle that people forced to flee persecution, conflict or violence must be able to find safety and protection,\u201d said Elizabeth Tan, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees&#8217; director of international protection and solutions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Its core principle is \u201cnon-refoulement,\u201d prohibiting the return of people to a place where they would face persecution, torture or other serious harm. It all rests on the idea that no society is immune to war, persecution or sudden upheaval.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Here\u2019s what six refugees say about their experiences and the importance of the convention.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Sayed Alom, a humanitarian aid worker and one of the <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/821872d3fe0543c184789a7138e4ccb5\">700,000 Rohingya who fled Myanmar<\/a> into neighboring Bangladesh in 2017, has been languishing in refugee camps there ever since. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Myanmar&#8217;s military forces \u201craped our mothers and sisters, burned down our homes, threw our children into the river and set them on fire,\u201d he recalled in an interview in refugee camps outside Cox\u2019s Bazar, Bangladesh. \u201cWe were persecuted until we could no longer live there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Alom, who expected to return home quickly, says the limbo situation has become \u201cimaginably worse,\u201d with kidnapping for ransom, as well as threats from nature, including extreme heat, flooding and <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/bangladesh-rohingya-landslides-7539892fca4a4a046478fc7ef142fabc\">landslides<\/a> destroying the camps.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Human rights lawyer Juan Carlos Arce considers himself among millions of people whose lives have been saved by the convention: He fled Nicaragua by foot in 2018 after <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/general-news-4cb36d229a4f432686595d23a09f6771\">a bloody government crackdown against protesters killed hundreds. <\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights, for which Arce worked, had documented the violence and was deemed a \u201cterrorist organization\u201d by President <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/nicaragua-elections-ortega-rosario-murillo-sandinist-db7df72ee90928737a8f3fbad8b76dd3\">Daniel Ortega\u2019s government<\/a>. He fled to Costa Rica where he was granted asylum. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">In Costa Rica, rights defenders and Nicaraguan opposition leaders were attacked and even assassinated, so he moved to Barcelona, Spain, last year under a resettlement program organized by UNHCR and the U.N.\u2019s International Organization for Migration.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cFeeling safe and protected, that is priceless,\u201d he said under Barcelona\u2019s Arc de Triomf, as tourists and residents walked by.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">More than seven decades after fleeing her village, 88-year-old Hussniyah Ahmad Ghozlan still remembers the journey that brought her family to <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/photo-gallery\/lebanon-shelter-hezbollah-israel-war-487792d7f62cfc2c5d9d20a2fd62fea1\">Lebanon<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Ghozlan was a child when they fled during the 1948 war after their village \u2014 Yajur, southeast of Haifa, Israel \u2014 was depopulated. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cWe got by because we worked, raised our children and built our lives,\u201d she said in an alley near her home in Shatila camp for Palestinian refugees in Beirut. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Asked whether she knew of the 1951 Refugee Convention, Ghozlan laughed and said she had not, explaining that she never learned to read or write.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Hershel Greenblat was born during World War II, in 1941, inside a cave in Ukraine as his Jewish family hid <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/video\/holocaust-survivors-share-haunting-memories-as-france-marks-80th-anniversary-of-nazi-bc28a5d94036449290e45b82ddf50723\">from the Nazis<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">After the war, his family sneaked into Austria, where they lived in U.S. Army camps for displaced persons. After initially considering moving to Israel, they opted for the U.S. after receiving approval in 1949 to immigrate there. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">He recalled how his father woke him in the middle of the night as the Army transport ship approached the Statue of Liberty. The kids received welcome boxes packed by American middle-schoolers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">In Atlanta, where his family has lived for decades, Greenblat said refugees today often get a different welcome. He said he wasn&#8217;t previously familiar with the convention \u2014 but said refugees deserve protections and opportunities for work and education.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cRefugees in the \u201950s worked their butts off to get what they wanted, what they needed,\u201d said Greenblat, now 85. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Wenyen Gabriel said his parents worked hard too. He was born in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, in 1997 after his parents fled civil war in southern Sudan. They later moved to Egypt as refugees, before being resettled in New Hampshire.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Little Wenyen was 2 at the time. Big Wenyen \u2014 he&#8217;s 2.08 meters (nearly 6 feet, 10 inches) tall \u2014 earned a basketball scholarship at the University of Kentucky and played in the NBA. In 2024, he played for the young country of South Sudan at the Olympic Games in Paris.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">While he at times felt \u201ca little bit different from the people in the community\u201d in New Hampshire, there were other refugee families around. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cWe had to struggle and figure out how to become something inside of the United States,\u201d he said at the headquarters of the refugee agency UNHCR, for which he became its newest goodwill ambassador on Monday. \u201cIt\u2019s not easy to make something of yourself in a foreign country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \"><a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/syrian-swimmer-retracing-her-steps-as-a-refugee-at-worlds-603d8130613440e7b07610c80cef740\">Swimmers Yusra and Sarah Mardini<\/a> fled war-torn Syria in 2015, joining the wave of refugees from their home country that year, in a saga that has been turned into a highly-regarded movie. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">They went first to Lebanon, then Turkey, where they paid smugglers to take them by sea to Greece: They jumped out of an overloaded boat to keep it from sinking. After an arduous trek across southeast Europe, they received refuge in Germany. She was named a UNHCR <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/9954f8226c5a4fb1b60e34ff04f183a4\">goodwill ambassador<\/a> in 2017.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Now that Syria&#8217;s war is over, Mardini is hopeful: Some 1.3 million Syrians have returned. But after such an ordeal, change doesn&#8217;t just happen overnight. \u201cYou can\u2019t just snap your fingers,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cI do believe that my country and its people are very strong and that I\u2019m going to contribute in the best way possible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">___<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">Brito reported from Barcelona, Spain. Associated Press journalists Ali Sharafeddine in Beirut; and R.J. Rico and Emilie Megnien in Atlanta contributed to this report. Freelance journalists Habi Zullah and Ro Yassin Abdumonab contributed from Cox\u2019s Bazar, Bangladesh.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>GENEVA &#8212; Tuesday marks the 75th anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, which was born after the ravages of World War II to help people fleeing war, violence and persecution. Proponents say the treaty has saved millions of lives. Respect for it, though, has come under strain: Some countries have denied entry to asylum seekers&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19869,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.abcnewsfe.com\/a\/224c02ac-e3cb-410f-b806-18e03746f7e3\/wirestory_939861242d131b242ffea8112ffc60fd_16x9.jpg?w=1600","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}