WAR—REFUGEES

And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.

—Rev. 12:6

7197 Record Big-Group Refugees

The first international effort to cope with the refugee problem was made by the League of Nations at the end of World War I. White Russian refugees from the U.S.S.R., Armenian refugees from Turkish persecution, Italian refugees from Mussolini’s fascism kept the problem current during the twenties.

In 1933 Hitler created a whole new crisis with his persecution of the Jews, which continued a dozen years. But the largest single group of refugees that the world has ever seen, 8 million people, was a consequence of World War II. The efforts of UNRRA succeeded in resettling, repatriating or reintegrating into the local economy some 6,500,000 persons, leaving 1,500,000 to be cared for.

According to the Geneva-based United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees, the world’s population of refugees now totals a staggering 6.2 million people. In addition, there are 2.6 million people whom the U.N. classifies as “displaced persons.”

Symbols: Because of the sympathy they have aroused—or the disputes they have caused—some of the refugees have become international symbols of misery: the Vietnamese boat people, the Cambodians in Thailand, the 700,000 Afghans in neighbouring Pakistan and nearly 2 million Palestinians scattered throughout the Arab world and the West. Other hordes have migrated across Africa with little publicity. Some 100,000 refugees from Chad and Equatorial Guinea have fled into Cameroon. Tanzania shelters 156,000 refugees from the chronic strife in Rwanda and Burundi. The Sudan has taken in more than 500,000 refugees from Ethiopia, Uganda, Zaire and Chad. And some 1.1 million inhabitants of Ethiopia’s Ogaden region have fled into Somalia.

The U.S. is trying to shoulder its fair share of the refugee burden. The Refugee Act of 1980, signed into law by President Carter, drops earlier U.S. geographic and ideological restrictions in favour of the U.N. ’s broader definition of a refugee as anyone fleeing racial, religious, political or social persecution.

Says Victor Palmieri, the newly-appointed U.S. coordinator for refugee affairs, “The worldwide refugee explosion is a massive tragedy in human terms and a growing crisis in financial terms for the countries bearing the burden.” Sooner or later, the nations of the world may be forced to agree on a coordinated method for dealing with the growing millions of homeless people.

7198 Communist Refugees

In the first 20 years after World War II, escapees from Communist Europe numbered 16.2 million,

from China     1.4 million

from North Korea     5.0 million

from Indo-China     1.2 million

from Cuba     310,000

And since 1964:

from Communist Europe     about 70,000 a year

from China     about 36,000 a year

from Indo-China     over 250,000

since 1975

from Cuba     about 500,000 since 1964.

7199 More Communist Refugees

—24 million persons fled Communism between 1945–1964.

—Since 1970,125,000 Jews have left Russia by 1977.

—Over the past 15 years (ending 1977), nearly 170,000 East Germans have fled to West Germany—about 6,000 yearly.

—Annually, about 70,000 people fled the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

—About 100 Chinese a day fled to Hong Kong. The illegals there total 6,000 in 1976.

7200 Vietnamese Refugees

When South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia fell in 1975, more than 250,000 Indo-Chinese escaped.

The U.S. opened her doors to about 144,000; France took about 25,000; and Canada, 6,000. About 76,000 wait in camps in Thailand.

7201 Relocating Vietnam’s Refugees

Among the Vietnamese who fled their country just prior to the Communist takeover were hundreds of evangelical Christians. They left behind some 400 churches in South Vietnam and some 120,000 other believers. Spokesmen for the Christian and Missionary Alliance, which has taken on the responsibility of sponsoring the Christian refugees, say they may number as many as 1,000. The CMA was until recent years the only American mission board with workers in Vietnam. Its missionary efforts resulted in the establishment of the Evangelical Church of Vietnam.

Tom Stebbins, the last CMA missionary to leave Saigon, said he tried to get helicopters to go to the CMA-operated International Protestant Church there, inasmuch as some 200 persons had assembled in the building in hopes of being picked up. Stebbins was unsuccessful, and was himself forced to climb a wall to reach a helicopter. The CMA has also had missionary work in Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand.

—David Kucharsky

7202 Orphans Of War

How many children were orphaned in both World Wars?

For World War I it is estimated that the total number of orphans was of the order of nine million. Of these about two million were in Poland, one-and-one-half million in Germany, nearly one million in France, and one-half million in Italy.

The actual number of war orphans must have been considerably larger if those with parents killed in postwar disturbances are included. The number in Russia was huge, and as late as 1928 the surviving “wild” children of Russia were estimated at nine million.

No reliable estimate of World War II orphans has appeared, but it is likely that their number is of the same order as World War I. For the United States, about 120,000 children were orphaned by the death of the father in service during World War II.

7203 Photo Tracing Continues

Cologne (INB)—The German Red Cross’ Photo Tracing Service has been issuing almost a million photos of missing persons of World War II. So far, it has been able to clarify the fates of 280,000 people. Even today, there are parents searching for their missing children—and also offspring, already grownups now, who are striving to find their parents.

7204 Endless Voyages For Some

There are some 5,000 men, and a handful of women we read, who are on an endless sea voyage to nowhere. When the ship they are on, usually a freighter, arrives at port, they are locked up in a cabin. Sometime an armed guard is posted at the door. These are stateless people who have stowed away on ships without any sort of documents, usually for no other reason than to escape rushing poverty in their last homeland. Some of them have been travelling the world’s shipping lanes for 10 to 12 years, and they fully expect to die at sea, because no country wants them. Without exception they are penniless, friendless, unskilled, and often illiterate.

—Prairie Overcomer

See also: Loneliness ; Pilgrimage .