UN refugee chief asks Security Council to end cycles of displacement

The United Nations' top refugee official appealed to the Security Council on Friday to concentrate on ending conflicts and crises, warning that otherwise more than 117 million people uprooted from their homes risk remaining displaced abroad for generations.

Barham Salih, delivering his first address to the 15-member body since his election as high commissioner for refugees last December, said the council carries "a unique responsibility to help make peace possible." He urged members to exercise that responsibility on behalf of those forced to flee and the many more who should never have to.

Salih, who was president of Iraq from 2018 to 2022 and is himself a former refugee, spoke at a meeting held alongside the annual gathering of world leaders.

He drew a distinction between humanitarian work and political action, noting that agencies such as UNHCR confront the consequences of conflict daily but cannot bring peace. Under the UN Charter, that task belongs to the Security Council, which is charged with maintaining international peace and security.

The refugee chief listed several conflicts driving displacement. Sudan's war remains the world's largest displacement crisis, with 12 million people affected inside and outside the country, and he warned that people will keep fleeing as long as the fighting continues.

In Congo, he said, generations have lived through repeated cycles of conflict and violence, now worsened by an escalating Ebola crisis. In Ukraine, war has displaced millions within the country and pushed millions more across borders.

He also pointed to Western Sahara, claimed by Morocco, where generations of refugees have grown up in camps near Tindouf in neighbouring Algeria, facing uncertainty and limited prospects while awaiting a political solution.

Turning to the latest escalation in the Middle East, Salih said UNHCR has mobilised resources and staff to assist more than 130,000 Yemenis displaced by recent hostilities and still inside the country, along with over 3,700 who have sought safety in Djibouti.

Salih acknowledged that a goal he launched earlier this year — halving the number of refugees in long-term displacement who depend on humanitarian aid by 2035 — is ambitious. He insisted it must be, because keeping people alive year after year without allowing them to rebuild their lives cannot be the end goal.

Success, he said, cannot mean becoming better at sustaining people trapped in war for another year, or setting up a new camp in response to a 50-year emergency, or allowing children to inherit displacement from their parents.

"Success must ultimately mean creating the conditions in which people no longer need us," he said, describing UNHCR's ambition as preventing displacement where possible, resolving it where it has occurred, and enabling people to rebuild their lives in safety and dignity.