The Mayor of Akranes, Gísli S. Einarsson, with Nicole Andrea Arce Suarez, a Colombian refugee girl resettled to Reykjavik in 2007. Photo: Konráð Kristjánsson, Red Cross

2008-07-01

World Refugee Day in Iceland

On 20 June 2008, World Refugee Day was celebrated in Akranes, Iceland. The event was organized by the Icelandic Red Cross, the main implementing partner of UNHCR in Iceland, and took place on the town’s main square. A UNHCR emergency tent was set up, in which respective items were presented, to provide the guests with visible impression of some elements of UNHCR’s field operations. Among the guests were government representatives, Red Cross staff and volunteers, NGO activists, media and refugees. UNHCR was represented by Regional Protection Officer Thomas Straub.

After the guests were welcomed by the Mayor of Akranes, Mr. Straub delivered a speech in which he provided an outline of the World Refugee Day’s theme “protection”. Earlier in the day, he had given the first copy of the Icelandic version of the UNHCR Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status under the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees to the Minister of Justice and emphasized the Handbook’s value to government officials concerned with refugee status determination, refugee lawyers, NGOs and all others concerned with refugee matters.

	The audience. Photo: Konráð Kristjánsson, Red Cross

Mr. Straub further addressed durable solutions in general and resettlement in particular. Iceland has received most of its refugee population through resettlement and has an annual quota of 25-30 refugees. Later this year, a group of Palestinian refugee women at risk from Al Waleed, Iraq, will be resettled to Akranes. Mr. Straub thanked the municipality and its citizens for their generosity and wished they would provide a warm welcome to the new members of their community. He further praised the Icelandic integration program for resettled refugees, which includes the Red Cross program to arrange several volunteer Icelandic support families for each refugee family to help with everyday errands and give access to a social network and thus Icelandic society.