Finding Refuge(es): Shelter from the Storm

Coursing through the many veins of scripture is a subtle theme, a signpost if you will, for an issue that is just as controversial today as it was in Jesus’ time: the refugee. Abram (before he was Abraham), Ruth, and Joseph, all the way to the New Testament with Jesus’ family and himself being refugees in the land of Egypt, the message of how one should behave towards a refugee is clear: “Love the refugee.” (Deut 10:19). Many translations use words like “sojourner,” “foreigner,” or “alien,” but at their essence each means the same thing: love the person who is not from around here.

The most notable passage about refugees in scripture is probably The Good Samaritan found in Luke 10. Jesus uses a parable of a man that is robbed and left for dead on the road to Jericho, and a foreigner, who happens to be sworn enemies of each other, stops and helps him. He gives him shelter, and more than enough money to be taken care of.

This is Jesus’ idea of showing love to each other, to those that are the most different from us, and the ones that are inconvenient to love.

Initially, when the Syrian refugee crisis hit the news, it discouraged me. The overwhelming Western worldview painted the refugee as little more than a nuisance that are doomed to wreck our economies and threaten our children with his or her radical beliefs. Instead of using this terrible situation as an opportunity to show compassion, we reduced it down to an issue of inconvenience and xenophobic fear.

When we think of refugees, the image of a woman beaten down by war comes to mind, her eyes vacant and an infant on her hip. The UN defines “refugee” as “someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war, or violence. A refugee has a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group.”

Syria is undergoing a violent civil war that has killed thousands of Syrians and displaced millions more from their homes. Figures show that 4.8 million Syrians are refugees, having crossed international borders into other countries. 6.5 million Syrians are internally displaced, which means they have been forced out of their homes and are unable to leave their country.

Since 2015, Europe has experienced the highest influx of refugees since WWII. As refugee camps in Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq have become overcrowded, over a million refugees fled to Europe in order to gain asylum, causing vast division in the EU. The refugees have risked life and limb crossing the treacherous waters of the Mediterranean in search of safety. Greece and Italy have harbored over a million refugees while the UK has agreed to let in 20,000 refugees, and the US has allowed only 13,000.

The protocol for dealing with war refugees is based on the 1951 Convention relating to the status of refugees. Under the treaty, which was signed by 144 State parties, individuals have the right to seek asylum but they are not guaranteed to receive it. States have the right to grant asylum but are not under any obligation to do so.

The task of becoming a registered refugee and gaining asylum, which grants the individual right to legal protection, is a grueling process that includes mountains of paperwork, screenings, interviews, and can take upwards of six months. Meanwhile, millions of refugees wait in refugee camps, torn from friends, family, and their community, in an awkward limbo state of existence.

But that’s just for individuals the world recognizes as displaced by conflict.

The 1951 Convention remains the key legal document for defining who a refugee is and how we should go about dealing with them. Over the last sixty years, however, the world has experienced dramatic shifts that the Convention couldn’t predict at that time. In the last ten years, increasing numbers of people have been displaced by natural disasters. Floods, hurricanes, landslides are increasing with frequency and intensity, leaving destroyed lives in their wake.

A report by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (EM-DAT) recorded 6,873 natural disasters worldwide between 1994 and 2013, which claimed an average of 68,000 lives per year. Over the past two decades, the number of recorded natural disasters per year has doubled from 200 to 400. Floods were the most frequent type of disaster between 1994–2013, accounting for 43 percent of all disaster events, affecting more people than all other types of natural disasters combined.

Damages from disasters tend to be exacerbated more in developing countries by other factors such as poverty, hunger, and violence. According to The Guardian, Asia suffers the most damage to human life caused by climate related disasters than any other region in the world. 80 percent of those displaced by disasters in 2013 lived in Asian countries. As disasters become more and more frequent, there has been a, “mass migration from countryside to cities…especially in Asia’s mega-cities, which are the most disaster prone.”

Another report from the Brookings Institute claims that over 2 billion individuals have in some way been affected by natural disasters over the last decade. More than 30 million people were forced to flee their homes due to climate related disasters, according to the Huffington Post. Disaster related displacement is on the rise, and projected to get worse. By 2050, that number is expected to rise to 200 million. In the US, 776,000 people fled their homes because of Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

Unfortunately, though mass displacement at the hands of natural disasters has increased substantially with the rise of climate change, there is no classification or protocol for these types of climate refugees.

The International Bar Association (IBA) put it this way: “Within the international humanitarian community, the notion of the ‘climate refugee’ is problematic and controversial — problematic because it has no legal standing under existing international refugee and asylum law, and controversial because there is little agreement as to what to do about the problems it presents.”

We are tragically far behind when it comes to admitting the existence of climate refugees and what exactly to do with them.

In the last few years, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has defined “environmental migrants” as “persons or groups of persons who, for reasons of sudden or progressive changes in the environment that adversely affect their lives or living conditions, are obliged to have to leave their habitual homes, or choose to do so, either temporarily or permanently, and who move either within their territory or abroad.” Thankfully, IOM is working with the UN and spearheading this campaign, but we’re still a long ways away — as an international community — from recognizing climate refugees for what they are.

Whether conflict or climate-related, refugees are some of the most vulnerable people in the world today, yet the international community seems seems uncertain about what to do. As a follower of Jesus, I feel compelled to respond to this global refugee crisis, no matter their background, religion, or ethnicity. I simply cannot slam the door in the face of someone who was forced to flee their home. Climate refugees remind me of Matthew 26, when Jesus says, “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me…for as you did to one of the least of these my brothers, you did to me.”

If not for the love of each other, the planet, our children, then for the love of Jesus, who, if you’ll recall, was a refugee in Egypt when he was born (Matt 2:13–23) and remained a refugee in this world until he died.