
Refugee facts for kids
In 1951, the United Nations (UN) law called Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, said a refugee was a person who is forced to leave their country due to natural disasters or war and conflict
owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of their nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail him/herself of the protection of that country.
In 1967 the Conventions’ 1967 protocol and by regional conventions in Africa and Latin America to include persons who had fled war and violence in their country. A person who is seeking to be recognized as a refugee is an asylum seeker. In the United States a recognized asylum seeker is known as an asylee.
A refugee is a person who has to leave his or her country. This can be because of different reasons:
- It is no longer safe to stay, there might be a natural disaster such as flood or famine, war, or civil unrest
- There might be persecutions going on.
- The person is unable to sustain himself or herself economically.
- The person might have been expelled
- The person might have to leave for religious reasons
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Images for kids
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Children preparing for evacuation from Spain during the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1939.
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Czech refugees from the Sudetenland, October 1938
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Russian refugees near Stalingrad, 1942
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A camp in Guinea for refugees from Sierra Leone
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Erstaufnahmelager Jenfelder Moorpark
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The Sahrawi refugees – a forgotten crisis in the Algerian desert (7).jpg
For over 30 years, several tens of thousands of Sahrawi refugees have been living in the region of Tindouf, Algeria, in the heart of the desert.
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Refugee children from Syria at a clinic in Ramtha, Jordan, August 2013
