[COVID-19\Displaced Peoples]
Migrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers account for nearly one in every 100 people alive today…What does this pandemic mean for them, and what does it reveal about how “us” and “them” are defined in times of crisis, isolation, and unity?
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What does COVID-19 “stay at home” lockdown measures mean for displaced peoples, refugees, migrants, etc?
As orders to “stay at home” swept across the globe in March and April, some questioned what those mandates meant for people without a place to call home, such as homeless populations and those who live crowded into private and government-run assisted living facilities and prisons.
In many cases, we have seen the best of humanity rise to meet the challenges facing their communities: exhausted doctors providing coronavirus testing to the homeless in their off-hours, struggling restaurants donating food to the elderly from their kitchens, and people uniting to demand the early release of vulnerable populations behind bars.
But there is another population that should be considered in these questions—those who have fled their homes in search of safer shores.
Who is rising to meet the critical needs of those without a community? The global response, or lack thereof, has shown just how invisible this population is to the majority of the world.
The novel coronavirus pandemic comes, tragically, at a time when our world has a record number of people who are displaced. Migrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers account for nearly one in every 100 people alive today. More than half of them are children. What does this pandemic mean for them, and what does it reveal about how “us” and “them” are defined in times of crisis, isolation, and unity?
As countries around the world grapple with an ongoing pandemic and dwindling resources, borders have been locked, search and rescue missions have largely been abandoned, and ports have been closed for the foreseeable future.
The result is an already vulnerable population with nowhere to turn.
For the rest of this Sapiens story log on to: https://www.sapiens.org/column/borders/pandemic-refugees/
