What is the definition of a refugee?

Broadly speaking, refugees refer to people who are homeless, displaced and need to leave their places of origin due to natural and man-made disasters. Strictly speaking, refugees are concluded according to an international convention of the United Nations 195 1 and a protocol on the status of refugees revised by the United Nations 1967. It is defined as a person who, for provable reasons, fears persecution, stays outside his own country because of race, religion, nationality, belonging to a particular social group or holding certain political views, and is unable or unwilling to be protected by that country because of this fear, or a stateless person, or a person whose country has perished, and who is unable or unwilling to return to that country for the above reasons.

Geographically speaking, refugees are a special form of population migration. Due to natural disasters, war disasters, class oppression and ethnic oppression, religious and racial discrimination and changes in national boundaries, a large number of people were forced to leave their homes and live in exile, resulting in forced migration. After the Second World War, the world refugee problem has become increasingly prominent, mainly in Asia and Africa. African refugees mainly come from South Africa and the Horn of Africa, while Asian refugees mainly come from Afghanistan, Cambodia and Vietnam. The United Nations 195 1 adopted the Convention on the Status of Refugees on July 28th, and 1967 adopted the Protocol on the Status of Refugees, calling for granting refugees basic human rights and establishing the High Commissioner for Refugees, who is responsible for supervising the implementation of the refugee convention and receiving assistance.

Refugees are a special group in the international community. They are a group unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin due to war, ethnic persecution, tribal conflicts, national territory change, political asylum, natural disasters and economic deterioration. They are characterized by group, helplessness, mobility, spontaneity and passivity.

Refugees are divided into economic refugees, war refugees, ethnic and religious refugees, political refugees, natural disaster refugees and so on. Economic refugees are people who "voluntarily" leave their homes in order to improve their lives, also known as "illegal immigrants". Natural disaster refugees are people who are forced to leave their homes due to earthquakes, severe floods and droughts, and can usually return to their countries of origin through temporary relief. War refugees are people who flee their homes to escape the war. The attributes of each kind of refugees are not single, sometimes war refugees are political refugees, disaster refugees are environmental refugees, and so on. At present, there are generally three ways to solve the refugee problem in the world: voluntary repatriation, local resettlement and resettlement in a third country.