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IFRC’s World Refugee Day message: ‘We are with you’ | IFRC

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News and Press Release

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IFRC

Posted

18 Jun 2025

Originally published

18 Jun 2025

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Imagine you are 24 years old and a mother of two. Suddenly, armed conflict within your country sweeps through your town and you have to escape to save your life. You leave on foot, with your children and anything you can carry.

This is the fate that befell 24-year-old Munana, who had to flee her home in Sudan’s Darfur region with her children in 2024. Arriving in Adré, Chad, close to the border with Sudan, her family immediately received support from the Red Cross of Chad.

“The journey between Sudan and here was very difficult,” she says. “When we arrived here the Red Cross welcomed us. They have given us a tent, lights, toiletries and water.”

This is just one story among thousands of people around the world who are forced to flee simply to find safety for themselves and their family. And it’s another example of Red Cross and Red Crescent actions that say to people like Munana that they are not alone – we stand with you.

As we mark World Refugee Day 2025 on 20 June, this year under the theme of “solidarity”, the IFRC asks people around the world to express their solidarity through action, by helping us to build empathy and understanding for the plight of refugees and to support our life-changing work in places where refugees need us most.

We ask you to stand in solidarity with people like Abdel, who supervises the volunteers who welcomed Munana at the Chad Red Cross’s humanitarian service point (HSP) in Adré, which in this case is funded by the British Red Cross.

At humanitarian service points like this one, the Red Cross supports refugees where they are – along routes, in camps, in host communities – by providing food, psychosocial assistance, protection services for the most vulnerable, shelters, and relocation support.

In some areas, the Red Cross also provides cash assistance, so people can choose what they and their families need most while retaining some control and dignity. Surrounded by so much suffering, Abdel sees this work as a source of comfort and happiness. “Often people ask, what is happiness? For me, happiness is helping people,” he says.

24-year-old Munana, who had to flee her home in Sudan’s Darfur region with her children in 2024.

Photo: Salomon Dainyoo/British Red Cross

A global crisis

Solidarity with refugees is more critical than ever, given the scope of displacement due to violence around the world. Even some of the world’s largest crises do not always get the attention they deserve.

Sudan, for example, is experiencing the world's largest displacement crisis, with over 12.3 million peopleforced from their homes due to ongoing civil conflict. Most were displaced within Sudan, but nearly one third – 4 million people – have become refugees in neighbouring countries such as Chad, Egypt, and South Sudan. Yet this massive crisis receives relatively little international media attention.

Sadly, this is not the only conflict causing people to leave their homes to find safety elsewhere. The UN Refugee Agency estimates that more than 123 million people around the world have been forcibly displaced.

Among them, 36.8 million are refugees (meaning they sought safety in a country other than their own) and another 8.4 million are asylum seekers (people who have sought international protection and recognition as refugees outside their home country).

Raising awareness about sexual- and gender-based violence and its prevention is a key part of Red Cross and Red Crescent response operations. In Cox's Bazar refugee camp, the Bangladesh Red Crescent engages women and girls in discussions, livelihoods training and other ways to make them less vulnerable to exploitation.

Photo: IFRC

A global response

The scale of population movement around the world is one reason more than 165 National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies around the world are working to support people on the move, including migrants and refugees, wherever they need assistance.

A total of 115 of those Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies are supporting refugees and asylum seekers through both emergency response efforts and longer-term programmes. This support spans emergency and crisis settings, including countries such as Bangladesh, Sudan’s neighbouring countries, and Ukraine’s neighbouring countries.National Societies also assist and protect migrants and refugees traveling along dangerous migration routes in all corners of the globe.

This includes the 63 National Societies participating in the IFRC’s Global Route-Based Migration Programme, which aims to save lives and improve the safety and dignity of 4.7 million people on the move each year, including migrants, refugees, displaced people, and host communities.

Red Cross and Red Crescent teams are in call centres, connecting people to lost family members. They are at airports, bus stops and train stations, providing people with a safe space to rest.

The support given is as individual as the story and experiences of each person on the move, and can include healthcare, Restoring Family Links, mental health and psychosocial support, protection, information, food and other essential supplies. There is even a humanitarian service point at sea. The Ocean Viking rescue vessel regularly rescues migrant vessels in distress in the Central Mediterranean Sea.

A volunteer with the Tajikistan Red Crescent Society talks with Masoud, who fled Afghanistan with his family in 2021.

Photo: Yulia Bilenko, IFRC

An ongoing journey

Solidary with refugees continues even after people arrive in a new community or country. That’s because, very often, a new journey, full of challenges has just begun.

While some refugees successfully establish themselves in new communities, many others face dire challenges. They risk losing connections with their families and they often lack access to essential health and social services. They also may come face to face with discrimination, human trafficking, exploitation, legal and cultural hurdles and even violence.

And even when things go relatively smoothly, it is not always easy to feel at home in a new country and a new culture. Often, it takes a while to start feeling at home. This is one reason why National Societies such as the Red Crescent Society of Tajikistan work to help people settle and feel at home.

With the support of the Programmatic Partnership, funded by ECHO PP, for example, the IFRC supports the Red Crescent Society of Tajikistan in providing cash, food parcels, housing supplies and hygiene kits, among other things, to refugees in Tajikistan. The support has also helped the Red Crescent to organize vocational courses, including culinary, driving, beauty courses, and English classes for Afghan kids.

In this classroom, people who fled the escalation of conflict in Ukraine listen attentively to their teacher as part of Hungarian language classes offered by the Hungarian Red Cross.

Photo: IFRC

Changing attitudes

There are numerous examples of this kind of Red Cross and Red Crescent solidarity work around the world. Numerous National Societies in Europe, for example, offer mental health and psychosocial support as well as language classes to refugees from Ukraine.

Others work to promote better understanding of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants. As part of its longstanding commitment to anti-racism, for example, the Finnish Red Cross developed the Identify and Act Navigator – a digital tool designed to help people recognize their own biases and understand when and how to intervene in racist situations.

In three months the Navigator app was viewed by approximately 20, 000 people; roughly 8 000 people completed all the various stages and scenarios presented in the programme.