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Group 3
This article details 10 different refugee crises that are still happening in the year 2020. It is important for students to realize that refugee is a current term and it is a struggle that people around the world are facing.

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The ongoing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan consistently makes it one of the top countries of origin for refugees. Roughly 1 in 10 - that is, 2.8 million - refugees are Afghan by birth. More than 88% of Afghan refugees are hosted in neighboring Pakistan and Iran.

For those Afghans still living in their home country, almost two-thirds are in areas that are directly affected by conflict. This conflict prompts ongoing internal displacement. The problem is compounded by the limited capacity of communities, governments, and humanitarian actors to withstand the impact of repeated natural disasters including floods, landslides, earthquakes, and drought.

Concern has been in Afghanistan for over 20 years and recently became the UN's chosen partner for the emergency response to displacement in the northeastern part of the country.

In February 2022, escalated conflict in Ukraine led to a full humanitarian crisis, including 5.4 million refugees. Over 16% of the current global refugee population is Ukrainian. This exceeded the UNHCR's initial estimate that 4 million Ukrainians - nearly 10% of the country's population - would be displaced as a result of conflict.

Concern began working in Ukraine in 2022, shortly after the beginning of the conflict. After initially working in bordering host communities like Poland and Romania, we switched operations to Ukraine itself where we determined humanitarian need to be greatest.

Over 25% of the total global refugee population are part of the global diaspora in the wake of the 10-year Syrian crisis. As of late 2022, 6.8 million Syrians have sought refuge, primarily in Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, and Türkiye (which is currently the largest host community for refugees). In Lebanon, there are no formal camps, which leaves its population of over 1 million Syrians living across 2,000 communities, often overcrowded temporary shelters.

The number of Syrians displaced within their own country matches the number of refugees, with conflicts driving over 6.6 million people from their homes and forcing them to resettle. 2.98 million still remain in hard-to-reach and besieged areas.

Since 2013, Concern has responded to this crisis, both locally in Syria, and with refugee communities in Türkiye and Lebanon. In 2019, we also began operating in Iraq.

Concern's work with refugees

Concern's response to the world's displacement crisis is in keeping with the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework, approved by all 193 Member States of the United Nations in September, 2016.

The CRRF gives a set of guidelines for approaching the predictable aspects of these crises. This includes:

Easing pressure on countries that welcome and host refugees

Building self-reliance of refugees

Expanding access to resettlement of refugees in third countries or offering other complementary pathways

Fostering conditions that enable refugees to voluntarily return to their home countries

Last year alone, Concern responded to 66 emergencies in 23 countries, reaching 17.8 million people with urgent necessities such as shelter, psychosocial support, healthcare, and food as well as longer-term livelihoods trainings that benefit both displaced and host communities.
Support Concern's work *All numbers are via the UNHCR's Refugee Statistics Portal and include refugees under UNHCR mandate. For the purposes of this article, we do not include Venezuelans displaced abroad or Palestinians under UNRWA mandate.

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The 10 largest refugee crises to know in 2023

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In 2022, we exceeded 30 million refugees around the world - by far the highest on record. 76% of them come from just six countries.

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2) We plan on having the students journal as they read their assigned section of the book. The following class period, we would break the students into small groups to have a discussion about their findings, thoughts, and reactions to the reading.

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1) Supplemental Text-
This video focuses on defining what makes someone a refugee.  Students will be able to have a better understanding of the character's journey in becoming a refugee.

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What does it mean to be a refugee? - Benedetta Berti and Evelien Borgman

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(Katie Pritzl, Shelby Ballweg, Oliva Devalk)

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(Katie Pritzl, Shelby Ballweg, Oliva Devalk)

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1.) https://www.thebooksomm.com/home/refugee
2.) Supplemental Text: Escape From Syria

to go along with the lesson(s) while reading Refugee.

https://www.amazon.com/Escape-Syria-Samya-Kullab/dp/0228102774

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Katie Pritzl, Shelby Ballweg, Olivia De Valk

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Katie Pritzl, Shelby Ballweg, Olivia De Valk

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This article shows the real life struggle of people trying to escape from Cuba. This would be good background information, to help students gage the reality of the situations the characters are going through.

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Miami, FL--There are over 1.1 million Cuban immigrants in the United States, and even more than other immigrant groups, they have clustered, with over two-thirds living in greater Miami. What unites this group is not dislike of their home country, but the need to leave the Castro brothers' Communist regime. Without the money or legal ability to fly out, however, many have risked their lives by floating on man-made rafts to Florida, Mexico and elsewhere. Thousands of these raft people-or "balseros"-are traversing the streets of Miami, carrying a memory that is seldom-discussed in Cuban culture. But I recently lived there, and found one balsero willing to tell his story.

This connection came through being a Forbes columnist. I was interviewing a Miami-based Cuban-American developer named Carlos Fausto Miranda, for a story on local regulatory policy. I mentioned that I also wanted to write about Miami's balseros, and he said he could find me one. I followed up on his offer several months later, and he began looking. It turned out that his high school wrestling coach, in a journey profiled by the Miami Herald in 1997, had nearly died escaping Cuba 25 years ago. Carlos wasn't in town, but scheduled an interview with this coach, and asked an old teammate, Ivan Agustin Enriquez, to translate.

So late one October morning, Ivan and I drove out to nearby Hialeah, America's most Cuban city by percentage, to meet Fidel Albelo. We rolled deep into a residential area defined by cheap single-family housing, entered a driveway, and knocked on a side door. We were greeted by a short, stocky, affable 56-year-old man. The former player and coach embraced one another in Spanish-Albelo's only language-and he led us into a small apartment dominated by trophies and team photos.

Over the next 4 hours, Albelo detailed, often through tears, his early life in Cuba, his near-death escape, and the life he has since built in Miami. What we learned was that escaping Cuba is not only dangerous, but by forcing a transition between such radically different societies, emotionally chaotic.

*

January 1, 1959, is an infamous day in Cuba's history. That was when Fidel Castro's revolutionary army, which had spent several years battling Fulgencio Batista's dictatorship, took power. That next day, Fidel Albelo was born, to a family that sympathized with the revolution.

Albelo was born in Cardenas, a 100,000-person city 97 miles east of the capital Havana. His parents lived off combined earnings of $20/month, with the father as a taxi driver, and the mother as a school assistant. His house was, at about 300 square feet, smaller than his current apartment, or a Manhattan micro-unit-and accommodated 9 people, including his parents, his 5 brothers, and a sister.

Because living quarters were so cramped, Albelo attended a boarding school at age 7 that specialized in sports, and remained there until age 19, growing into a top-level amateur wrestler. But when it came time to travel for international wrestling competitions-which was seen as a path to a lucrative professional career-Albelo's parents axed the plan.

"I competed in trials for the national circuit, and was chosen," he said. "But to participate would have obliged me to enter fully into state custody and study in the Soviet Union, which my parents forbade since I was but a child."

Albelo's other option was to remain in Cuba and pursue intercollegiate wrestling and studies. But this would keep him in poverty, so he began scheming with some friends about escaping.

Nowadays in Cuba, citizens can travel internationally, thanks to reforms made by Fidel Castro's relatively benevolent brother, Raul, who has ruled since 2008. But for the revolution's first few decades, leaving the island was, like so many other basic rights, a crime. This meant anyone who escaped-or who talked about it, assisted someone else, or collected rafting materials-was subject to one to ten years in prison.

In 1980, several years into this planning and scavenging process, Albelo's group got arrested, when one friend who'd grown scared ratted everyone out. Albelo was immediately viewed as traitorous by his parents, blacklisted from jobs, and thrown for a year in prison. He spent that time in a 200-foot cell with 5 other men, one open toilet, and a 2-hour weekly time block for viewing the sun-inhumane conditions that spurred violence among prisoners and guards.

The paradox of Cuba's government, however, is that despite its brutality, it manages the occasional pretense of compassion. For otherwise tormented prisoners, this meant providing study areas that enabled some to finish their educations. Albelo thus left prison in 1982, Physical Education degree in hand, and recharged his life.

When asked whether he remains bitter towards Castro for the prison sentence, Albelo answered no. The real problem, he explained, were those who worked under Castro-such as the network of neighborhood spies who uphold communism, called the CDR-and trying to blame the president would be like "blaming Obama for a corrupt police officer in Miami." But he did acknowledge that Castro's Communist system was engineered to foster abuses of power.

From 1982-1990, Albelo coached and officiated Cuban wrestling tournaments, got married, and raised a daughter, Nidya. But his appetite for leaving never waned, and there was never any doubt that he would try again.

"It was two things for me," he said. "One, it was that I thought I could have a better life as an athlete and a coach and a trainer in the United States, and as well, I had always had the bad memory of the Cubans taking me to the prison."

The year in jail, though, remained a warning for how to approach it-and shows the albatross that comes with trying to escape. Albelo and his friends had been secretive the first time, but not enough, and it had cost them a year of their lives. So this time he was even more careful, carrying on for years under the knowledge that he would one day pursue this life-changing act, yet telling nobody about it-not his parents, his wife, his daughter, his siblings, his friends, nor the wrestlers he coached.

Meanwhile, he needed to find some people to go with him. One reason is that navigating the dangerous Caribbean waters with others can provide safety and moral support. Another is that escaping Cuba is logistically difficult in a nation where spare parts are rare, even illegal. Aspiring exiles working together can spend years collecting tubing, compasses, wooden boards, gasoline, motors, and flotation devices like oil drums and tires. The entire time, they must conceal these items from the government, and from local CDRs.

Albelo went through the entire 1980s considering these factors, and by decade's end, the stars began aligning. He discovered that two cousins-Wilfredo Esquijeros and Alfredo Galban-wanted to leave too, and owned a 5-foot motor boat. One final step Albelo took was to divorce his wife, since in Cuba, defectors' families are often violently targeted.

Early morning on June 26 th, 1990, the three set to escape. Albelo kissed his daughter goodbye thinking he would never see her again, and then boarded the boat. The three brought along only some rum, a water bucket, and some food, to give the impression that they were fishing. But they slowly drifted from eyeshot, and were soon headed to the United States.

While sitting inside his apartment 25 years later, I used this moment to ask Albelo the question I'd wanted to ask him, or any balsero, all along: what was going through your head that morning? Here was a life-shattering event that you had anticipated for over a decade, yet never told anyone about; you were now leaving without forewarning, meaning those you knew would wake up tomorrow to find you gone, without any idea of what happened; you believed that you would never see them again, since returning might land you back in prison; and now you were about to enter a dangerous sea where you could die of drowning, dehydration, or shark attacks; if you were caught by Cuban authorities, you would be sent back to prison, this time for even longer; and if you reached America, you'd enter a totally different society without money, job arrangements, contacts, nor any grasp of the native language; meanwhile, all the things you ever knew-including not just your friends and family, but the country and culture you grew up in-would be forever behind you.

What were your emotions that morning of June 26 th, 1990, when preparing for such a violent transition? Was it fear? Melancholy? Did you feel like a burden was finally being lifted? After asking these questions, I let Ivan do a solid minute of translating. Albelo, ever the talker, listened, grew silent, began to answer, and then broke down crying for several minutes.

*

When Cubans sail from their country's shores, they face numerous dangers at every stage of the trip, beginning from departure. The first 12 miles from shore are owned by Cuba, and patrolled by officers. Once caught, balseros can go to prison, although in some cases there have been suspicions of murder.

Once past that 12-mile point, balseros enter international territory-but that's when the real dangers begin. The Florida Straits' innocent-looking coral blue waters conceal numerous threats that have killed an estimated 70,000-80,000 people since 1961. Sharks have little fear of snatching people from flimsy rafts. Rescue volunteers estimated that during the early 1990s, shark-related fatalities occurred monthly, and rafters have told tales of seeing blood-stained sea water, or detached human legs float past. The sea has powerful waves-over 10 feet, by one balsero's account-that can hurl rafts around or tip them over. The Caribbean sun churns out median temperatures of 86 degrees during the summer, leaving balseros subject to dehydration. Yet come nightfall, balseros-already soaked by waves or frequent tropical rains-can suffer hypothermia from the cold. Brutal tides can take balseros as wayward as the Bahamas or Cayman Islands, or leave them stranded for days. On numerous occasions, the U.S. Coast Guard, which navigates these waters, has found people hallucinating on their raft after a week or two at sea. Another common sight is to find rafts with nobody on them-another sign of an unsuccessful journey.

Other threats are man-made. Out of desperation, competing balseros will loot one another. Other exiles, rather than building their own rafts, will use smugglers-a global industry that is rife with fraud and abuse, namely the over-packing of boats. And then there is the Coast Guard, whose tactics must sometimes remind balseros of the government they escaped. Ever since Congress passed the Cuban Adjustment Act in 1966, Cubans have been viewed as political refugees, eligible for U.S. citizenship. But after particularly high numbers arrived in the mid-1990s, the act was amended to establish a "wet foot/dry foot" policy-if Cubans were caught by the Coast Guard at sea, they were returned to Cuba or a third country; if they touched U.S. soil, they could become citizens. This has often caused the Coast Guard to view balseros as intruders, rather than oppressed people, and find creative ways to stifle them. One example in 1999 included guardsmen who fire-hosed and pepper-sprayed 6 balseros swimming within eye-distance of Florida coastland. The exiles were caught and slated for repatriation, but were allowed to stay after the incident sparked white-hot protests in Miami.

*

Albelo and his cousins' trip began well, seemingly on pace to end at the 15-hour mark the three had anticipated. But things soon turned chaotic. Their boat, while better than a raft, was still coming from a nation where practically all equipment is primitive. Four hours in, the motor exploded, leaving a hole at the base, and shooting gasoline all over their clothes, food, and water. For the rest of the trip-now without anything to eat or drink-they were forced to manually propel the helm to catch the tide, and use their bucket for bailing the water at their feet.

They did this frantically over the next four days, working without sleep, and moving excruciatingly slowly. Albelo claimed that they saw no humans during this time, just lonely shark fins that would follow the boat intermittently, "like friends along for the journey." The sharks kept a distance, save one time when Albelo squatted off the back to defecate. Midway through, a shark lunged from the water at him, although it didn't make contact.

"I decided after that," said Albelo, "that I wouldn't go to the bathroom anymore."

During these 4 days of strenuous work, hot weather, and zero nutrients, Albelo and his cousins were convinced that, like many balseros, they wouldn't make it.

"We thought we were going to die the whole time. We had no motor, we had no water, we had no food, so for me to go back and talk about it is very difficult...It's an indescribable torture."

He believes the rum is what ultimately saved them. Drinking it, he explained, gave them stomach cramps, but also contained the last bit of available water, and numbed them to their bleak reality.

Thanks to a mild northward tide that Albelo called "a miracle," the trio finally sailed on June 29th into a woman's backyard in Elliot Key, 22 miles south of Miami. Despite thirst and exhaustion, they jumped off the boat and rejoiced. They were soon taken by the Coast Guard further north, where word had already spread about the three incoming Cuban rafters reeking of gasoline. By the time they arrived in Miami, local reporters were waiting to snap pictures and do interviews-a grand entrance into America.

Albelo said that despite secretly leaving Cuba, it didn't take his parents long to find out. For decades, certain AM radio stations from Miami have bled into Cuba's airwaves, and vice versa. It was while listening to one of Miami's Spanish-language broadcasts that Luis and Martha Albelo discovered the escape of their suddenly newsworthy son.

*

While Albelo's voyage was sensational, it is a journey that thousands have taken, mainly during four different time periods, leaving imprints across the modern history of Miami. The first was after Castro took power in 1959 and began confiscating private factories, farms and houses. This spurred a 250,000-person exodus to the U.S., largely of the business elite. The fathers of both Carlos, the developer, and Ivan, my translator, left during this period, the latter under " Operation Pedro Pan," when thousands of Cuban parents sent their children to Miami alone to live with relatives, rather than endure Marxist indoctrination in Castro's schools. Another 300,000 followed from 1965-1973, after Congress organized "Freedom Flights" for Cubans. In 1980, when Jimmy Carter reopened diplomatic ties with Cuba-and just a week after Albelo was imprisoned-Castro authorized the Mariel Boatlift, exporting 125,000. The fourth mass exodus of 35,000 occurred in 1994. The fall of the Soviet Union just years before had deprived Cuba of a major trading partner, causing food and electricity shortages. When people tried leaving, Castro punished them, but finally let them go amid riots. Since then, the U.S. has issued 20,000 visas to Cubans annually, but they're in such high demand that obtaining one feels like hitting the lottery; and even applying for one-much less buying a plane ticket-is expensive on an island where many live on $20/month. Thus, thousands of people still raft out every year.

Once in Miami, they join a complex crosshatch of fellow refugees, including many who are escaping from other oppressive Latin American countries. But Cubans have staked out the strongest presence, making up over one-third of the population. Newcomers often start in places like Little Havana, a neighborhood near downtown, or the working-class suburb of Hialeah, and if they become wealthy-as many Cubans do-occupy suburbs like Coral Gables.

This was mirrored in Albelo's path. After arriving in 1990, he spent several weeks getting screened at a detention center, then hit the streets. For three years, he bounced around the couches of different friends and extended family, and different jobs, working as a baker and a truck driver. His break came in 1993, when he was hired as the wrestling coach of Belen Jesuit. This prep school was founded in the 1800s in Havana, Cuba, and was even attended by Fidel Castro. But following the revolution, the alumnus expelled his school because of its religious affiliation, and exiles opened a new campus in Miami. Anyone among Miami's Cuban elite likely attended, and sends their kids, to Belen.

When Albelo arrived, the school had a fledgling wrestling program, fielding only 3 members. He quickly turned it around, and it has since been a powerhouse. During Albelo's 22-year tenure, he has coached 9 individual state champions, and is being considered for the Florida chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. He also referees international matches, fulfilling his lifelong dream of world travel that went unrealized in Cuba. And he started a t-shirt printing business, Atila Embroidery, in 1995.

"I love the country," he said of the United States. "It's given me all the opportunities in the world to do what I dreamed of doing."

Despite his first divorce in Cuba, he's had another two in America, and finally realizes that long-term relationships aren't for him. His daughter is now 37, and works as a lawyer in Cuba, remaining there so she can live near her mother. Although he left Cuba thinking he would never return, Albelo began making trips back in 1997, as the country grew more lenient towards visitors. He wanted to see his daughter, and make amends with his parents. He's had two more children in America-a 5-year-old daughter, and a 19-year-old son who attends Loyola University New Orleans-and finally became a citizen in 2008. Albelo sees himself coaching well into the future.

His two cousins also remain in the Miami area, and are truck drivers, with one opening his own business. He sees them occasionally, and says the time they spent 25 years ago scheming to escape Cuba-and nearly dying along the way-has never been brought up. But it is an event that still burns in his memory. Like so many others in Miami, it is a story born from the need to escape political oppression-and the desperation to succeed.

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An inside look at one man's near-fatal escape from the Communist dictatorship.

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Group 3
We plan on having students break into groups and focus on a specific text, research it, and present it to the class. Students will be able to utilize a day or two of classroom worktime to work with group members and understand current refugee issues.

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1. Supplemental Text
https://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/refugees/
This article talks about the United Nations, why people seek refuge, where refugees go, and has a video at the end about global trends because of forced displacement.

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This article shows the impacts of the Cuban Raft Exodus that are still present today.

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Two decades ago, in the midst of rioting and anti-government protests in Cuba, Fidel Castro announced that 'whoever wanted to leave, could go'-indicating that his forces would not prevent refugees from fleeing the country. More than 35,000 took the opportunity to leave, most heading to the United States. Men, women, and children packed into small boats and makeshift rafts and set off for Florida in the largest exodus from Cuba since the 1980 Mariel Boatlift. Reuters photographer Enrique de la Osa recently caught up with some of those 1994 refugees in Miami, photographing them at work and at home in their new country, 20 years later.
An earlier version of this photo essay misattributed a photo. The credit has been corrected.
View this page Hints: full screen. Skip to the next and previous photo by typing j/k or ←/→.

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20 Years After the 1994 Cuban Raft Exodus

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In 1994, more than 35,000 people took the opportunity to leave, most heading to the United States. Men, women, and children packed into small boats and makeshift rafts and set off for Florida in the largest exodus from Cuba since the 1980 Mariel Boatlift.

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1.) Supplemental Text:
a.)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBQ-IoHfimQ&ab_channel=SaveTheChildren
One Second in the Day of the Life
b.) "Boat" by Rupi Kaur from The Sun and Her Flowers pg 126
2.)  Lesson plan https://www.thebooksomm.com/home/refugee

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2. Lesson Plan
https://www.commonsense.org/education/lesson-plans/the-journey-of-a-refugee
I would have students do the 3rd lesson. They would get into pairs and work with their partner to escape Syria their own way. I think that this would be a great way for them to see how hard it was for the refugees to get where they were going. 