Refugee Week runs from 16 – 22 June, but of course, for the millions of displaced people across the world, their plight does not end on Sunday.

The UN Refugee Agency states that by the end of 2024, 123.2 million people had been forced to flee their homes globally due to persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations or events seriously disturbing public order.

Of those:

•  42.7 million are refugees
•  73.5 million people are displaced within the borders of their own countries (IDPs) 
• 8.4 million are asylum-seekers

Several events are taking place in Orkney:

Friday 20 June was World Refugee Day with the theme ‘Solidarity with Refugees’ .

This World Refugee Day is a moment to honor their courage and resilience, listen to their stories, and advocate for lasting solutions to displacement. It reminds us that welcoming refugees strengthens societies, fosters innovation, and builds communities where everyone belongs. Through collective action—from policy change and community engagement to sharing refugee voices—we affirm that refugees are not forgotten, not alone, and not without hope.

Refugees are among the most vulnerable people in the world. The 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol help protect them. They are the only global legal instruments explicitly covering the most important aspects of a refugee’s life. According to their provisions, refugees deserve, as a minimum, the same standards of treatment enjoyed by other foreign nationals in a given country and, in many cases, the same treatment as nationals.

Today, Saturday 21 June, peace campaigners in Orkney will be meeting in a vigil of solidarity between 1 and 2pm on the Kirk Green, Broad Street, Kirkwall with the 2.1million people trying to survive in Gaza.

The UK is complicit in the current Gaza Genocide, selling military equipment to Israel and providing the apartheid state with surveillance information from its spy planes. With Israel launching an unprovoked attack on Iran, and the subsequent retaliation, coupled with a war-hungry Trumpian administration in the Whitehouse, Gaza is being forced ever further down the news agenda.

The slaughter of civilians in Gaza is continuing with the lure of food used to trap a desperate people to walk towards US/Israeli privately controlled distribution points, where they are then shot at. Hundreds have been killed and or wounded by Israeli forces.

On 17 June, more than 50 people were killed and 200+ wounded when Israeli forces shelled people waiting on food trucks.

Israel continues to block humanitarian aid getting in – a war crime.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has only managed to dispatch 9,000 metric tons of food within Gaza over the past month, a fraction of what is required for the 2.1 million people in need.

“Far too many people have died while trying to access the trickle of food aid coming in,” the agency said in a  statement.

“Any violence resulting in starving people being killed or injured while seeking life-saving assistance is completely unacceptable.”

All the calls go unheeded. The UK continues to support Israel. The British Museum in London held an event on 16 May to mark the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. The violence in the founding of Israel resulted in the forced displacement of more than half of the Palestinian population of what had been Palestine.

December 1948, the UN General Assembly called for refugee return, property restitution and compensation (resolution 194 (II)).  However… the rights of the Palestinians continue to be denied. According to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) more than 5 million Palestine refugees are scattered throughout the Middle East.   Today, Palestinians continue to be dispossessed and displaced by Israeli settlements, evictions, land confiscation and home demolitions.

The BBC will not be broadcasting a programme it originally commissioned, Gaza: Doctors Under Attack, a documentary about the plight of medics in Gaza, from an independent production company, Basement Films.

The State Broadcaster said that it had to maintain its ‘impartiality’. Thanking the doctors who took part in the film the BBC statement continued:

“The BBC has produced powerful coverage of this conflict. Alongside breaking news and ongoing analysis, we have produced award winning documentaries such as Life and Death in Gaza, and Gaza 101. We have also investigated allegations of abuse of Palestinian prisoners and Israel’s attacks on Gaza’s hospitals. Just today we are running a powerful piece of longform journalism that captures the final two weeks inside a Gaza hospital before it was forced to close.”

1400 medical workers have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023 – this is a war crime.

Dr Khaled Al-Shawa, a surgeon in Gaza, said: 

“After 19 months, what I feel most is helplessness. All this time has passed, and yet we still stand in front of patients and we can’t help but watch them die. We live under constant threat.

“Nowhere is safe. At any moment, we could be targeted. As medical teams, we’ve lost so many. I myself lost my mother, and many other relatives as well.

“The danger surrounding us is immense. My message is the same one we’ve been repeating for more than a year and a half: medical teams who continue to care for patients must be protected. Their safety must be ensured, and the symbols they wear clearly marking them as medical teams must be respected. This is sacred. There must be urgent action to protect medical workers.”

In March, Israeli forces killed Osama Al-Bali – a paramedic who worked at MAP’s (Medical Aid for Palestine) Solidarity Polyclinic in Gaza – along with his wife and their 13-year-old son, as they sheltered in their tent. If these horrific stories can be found on the BBC, they will be far down the list of what the state broadcaster deems important – to ensure its ‘impartiality’.

Those attending the vigil in Orkney, continue to call for an immediate ceasefire so that humanitarian aid can be delivered to the 2.1million facing starvation, and invite all who share this hope to join with them on the Kirk Green between 1 and 2pm on Saturday 21 June.

Fiona Grahame