Refugee

Refugee, or displaced person, person fleeing a native country to avoid a threat or restriction. In the 20th century refugees have created a world problem. Pogroms forced Jews to leave Russia (1881–1917). In World War I Greeks and Armenians fled Turkey. About 1.5 million Russians settled in Europe after the Russian Revolution. In the 1930s Spaniards and Chinese left their respective homelands. The World War II legacy of about 8 million refugees led to the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, replaced in 1946 by the International Refugee Organization, which in turn was succeeded by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. They resettled millions of homeless from, for example, the Korean war. Many thousand Arabs who were displaced when Israel was created in 1948 still live in Middle Eastern refugee camps and are a serious political problem. The 1971 war between India and Pakistan over Bangladesh produced 9 million refugees, most of whom subsequently settled in Bangladesh. During the 1970s thousands of refugees from Southeast Asia—the “boat people”—fled to neighboring countries, many later emigrating to the United States. The refugee population of the United States was further increased in the 1980s by boatloads of Cubans and Haitians seeking asylum or economic opportunity.