DUBAI: When two extreme athletes chose to take on a rigorous challenge to row across the Atlantic Ocean in solidarity with refugees, they did not expect to encounter the same horror that millions of displaced people face every year.
Egyptian adventurer and motivational speaker Omar Samra, along with his good friend and professional athlete Omar Nour, share their story in the award-winning documentary “Beyond the Raging Sea.”
The film follows the pair as they fight for their life on the high seas, stuck in the open water for hours when their boat capsizes in the middle of a storm while traveling from the Canary Islands to Antigua in 2017. Samra told Arab News through Zoom that the biggest lesson they gained from their experience is that, while their journey has some similarities to the situation of refugees, it is completely different because they chose to embark on this adventure.
He continued on to say that they had the best training and equipment, but the idea that someone would go through all of this to get to the other side and realize that their problems are just getting started is something very daunting.
To mark World Refugee Day on 20 June, Samra and a dozen of other prominent figures and influencers have taken to multiple internet platforms to raise awareness of the rapidly rising worldwide displacement situation. The UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, reported the highest levels of displacement on record in its latest study, “Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2022,” with 108.4 million people forcibly relocated globally due to conflict, violence, persecution, or human rights violations. World Refugee Day is being marked this year in the midst of yet another long conflict and major displacement crisis, this time in Sudan.
Since the armed confrontation between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces erupted in mid-April, hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced, both within the country and into neighboring countries.
Rula Amin, the spokesman for the UNHCR’s Middle East and North Africa regional bureau, believes that ending the fighting and resolving the dispute through discussions is the best and most effective method to keep these numbers from rising. In the meanwhile, she said neighboring nations such as Egypt, Libya, Chad, Ethiopia, the Central African Republic, and Eritrea may assist the people of Sudan by keeping their borders open to individuals fleeing the conflict.
While several countries are making changes to accommodate displaced communities, the influx of refugees places significant economic and social strain on host countries, according to Dr. Sonia Ben Jaafar, CEO of the UAE-based Abdulla Al-Ghurair Foundation, which oversees the Abdul Aziz Refugee Education Fund.
According to her, Lebanon and Jordan have faced specific challenges in providing basic services such as housing, healthcare, education, and employment opportunities for their own populations as well as large numbers of mostly Syrian and Palestinian refugees.
Sudan had the second-largest refugee population in Africa until recently, with over a million displaced individuals from South Sudan, Eritrea, Syria, Ethiopia, the Central African Republic, Chad, and Yemen.
According to the UN, Sudan’s own descent into violence has disturbed entire communities caught in the crossfire, including 3.5 million internally displaced Sudanese and the 1.1 million refugees who have found shelter there.
