2002 PROVED 'MIXED BAG' FOR REFUGEES UN AGENCY
New York, Dec 26 2002 12:00PM

Describing 2002 as a "mixed bag," the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) today predicted next year would bring more of the same
unless war in Iraq triggers a fresh exodus of civilians in that region.

In a review of the past year, the UN agency recalled that the return of 2
million Afghans from exile was the big story. Their return was the largest
repatriation of refugees in three decades, ever since 10 million people
fled from the disintegrating region of East Pakistan into India in the
early 1970s and then returned to the newly created state of Bangladesh.

Even if results last year in Afghanistan were "staggering," however, High
Commissioner Ruud Lubbers cautioned that "huge tasks still lie ahead."
Around 4 million Afghans remain abroad, and with an anticipated budget of
around $200 million for 2003, UNHCR said it expects to help an additional
1.5 million return in the next 12 months.

Overall, the number of persons cared for by UNHCR around the world had
dropped by nearly 2 million the previous year, to just under 20 million.
Those figures kept falling in 2002, fuelled mainly by the Afghan returns,
and Mr. Lubbers predicted that this trend would likely continue. Only eight
years earlier the refugee agency had been assisting more than 27 million
people around the world.

While the drop in the overall number of people needing help was encouraging
in itself, UNHCR said, equally positive was that much of this progress was
reported from some of the world's worst trouble spots.

Progress in two major "breakthrough areas" Sri Lanka and Angola
appeared sturdier, UNHCR said, with some of the major causes of conflict
resolved. Hundreds of thousands of civilians are expected to continue the
long march home begun in those countries in 2002.

But parts of Africa such as Liberia, Western Sahara and Burundi remain
deeply troubled, UNHCR said, stressing that in looking beyond immediate
refugee crises, there had to be fundamental improvements in the way
millions of Africans are treated by the rest of the world.

UN News Service