Story of Cecilia
Becoming a refugee
Cecilia did not make a conscious decision to leave Sudan. At the age of eighteen, she ran away from where her mother and father had been killed in front of her. She ran into the bush, and without knowing crossed into the bordering country. After two days of flight she met a stranger who asked her where she wanted to go. The only thing she could say for sure was that she did not want to go back home.

Somewhere in Europe
She finds it hard to remember what happened next. Strangers shuffled her from place to place. She met a ‘group’ who told her that they were going to ‘Europe’. They told her that if she didn’t want to come she was on her own, so she followed them. The journey took them across a desert on foot, on small boats, and finally by car. It was only when she arrived in Brussels that Cecilia learned that Europe was made up of different countries, and that she was in Belgium. Following her companions’ advice, she found a compatriot, who directed her to the place where she sought asylum. Cecilia was interviewed and says she explained everything that had happened to her. She was given a piece of paper with the name of a reception centre, but was not given any information about the asylum procedure or directed to a lawyer.

Safer not to be in the asylum system
Cecilia now feels that she made a mistake. This same compatriot persuaded her that if she took up the offer of a place in an open centre for asylum seekers, she would be in danger of deportation. She was afraid and went with this woman. However, once she had “seen the kind of life” her new acquaintance was leading, she left and stayed with a series of other people in Brussels. She attended adult education classes and felt safe. She knew that even the worst things that can happen in Belgium would never be as bad as the killing and raping she had witnessed in her own country. After some years, friends of hers took her to a lawyer to check the status of her claim. The lawyer told her that her asylum claim had been turned down and there was an order for her to leave the country, and that this information had been sent to the asylum centre where she should have been staying. Cecilia was still confused about the whole procedure, and did not know what the words that would determine her life meant:

Terror of return
Cecilia describes it as a fateful night: she was sleeping when the police raided the apartment where she was staying. She and another woman were chained together and put in a car. Cecilia protested that she had classes the next day, and they assured her that they just had to take her to the police station to check a few things. They were driven to the Centre for ‘Illegals’ in Bruges, also called the ‘Refuge’. Cecilia was still confused about how she came to be in this situation. Fellow detainees informed her that the staff would try and persuade her to sign a form to say she would return home. This she feared above all, and she was living in a state of constant dread, which she describes in stammering and unfinished sentences, visibly traumatised.

Presumed to be lying
She did not know where her original lawyer was. Friends of hers in Belgium arranged a new lawyer for her who explained that although a final decision had been issued on her asylum claim, she could appeal against unlawful detention. This lawyer went twice with Cecilia to the court to ask for her liberation. Cecilia was so overcome with
tears that she could not say anything in the court. On both occasions her appeal was rejected. After the negative decisions, she was taken to the Sudanese embassy to obtain travel documents to enable her to be returned home, then, to her surprise, she was taken to the Nigerian embassy. When she asked why, she was told that although she had told them she was from Sudan, they were conducting their own investigations, because they suspected she might be from Nigeria.

Free, but for how long?
The lawyer took the case to the court for the third time. Two days later, after a total of four months in detention, Cecilia was told by a social worker that she was to be released, but would receive an order to leave the country within five days. They had been unable to obtain traveling documents from the Sudanese embassy. This means she has returned to her life of living in Brussels without papers.

But many things are now worse: the fear of being sent back to the detention centre is very real for Cecilia. She is scared to travel to school; she has no money and can’t pay for a tram ticket, so worries she could be picked
up by the police at any time.

Questions
Cecilia’s story speaks of the confusion encountered by young refugees when they are forced to leave their home countries, the subsequent difficulties encountered on arrival in a new country and the uncertainty for the future. Fear of returning to detention and a lack of money are only two of Cecilia’s problems. Working alone or in small groups, think of other difficulties that refugees like Cecilia may face while attempting to rebuild their lives in a new country or region.

Activity 3. Answer the following questions and check your answers according to UNHCR statistics.

- In which continent do you find the highest number of Refugees?
- In Africa, do you think there are more refugees or more IDPs?

Calculating the number of refugees worldwide is not an exact science. The data provide by UNHCR on internally displaced persons (IDPs) only refer to those for whom the UN agency is responsible, and exclude most Palestinian refugees who are assisted by UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
The tables below show the latest figures from UNHCR, with separate figures for IDPs and Palestinians. Although figures will vary from source to source, it is estimated that there is roughly 42 million refugees and internally displaced persons in the world.

Asia 2,680,000
Africa 12,090,000
Europe 1,580,000
Latin America 4,120,000
Northern America & Caribbean -
East Asia and Pacific 400,000
Middle East 5,100,000