The International Islamic Relief Organization-Saudi Arabia (IIROSA) will organize a symposium titled, "The best relief methods to alleviate the suffering of refugees" to mark the World Refugee Day on June 20.
In a press statement, Adnan bin Khalil Basha, secretary-general of the organization, said the symposium will discuss the best means and methods of reducing the pains and sufferings of refugees and underline the role to be played in this respect by the humanitarian, relief and charity organizations.
He said a number of specialists and officials will attend the symposium in which Gen. Adel Zamzami, director general of Civil Defense in Makkah Region, and Khaled Al-Habashi, director of the Saudi Red Crescent in the region, will speak.
The UN had observed this day in 2001 on the golden jubilee of the Geneva Convention. The convention was signed by 147 countries on 25 July, 1951, to provide legal protection and humanitarian assistance to refugees.
Basha praised the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for taking care of refugees and urged countries and the people of the world to provide more care to people who were forced by circumstances beyond their control to leave their countries and homes.
The secretary-general called for more media campaigns to shed light on the miseries of refugees while looking into mitigating their plight. He also asked for expanding the definition of a refugee to include people who are displaced within their own country.
Basha appealed to local, regional and international humanitarian and charitable organizations to provide aid including accommodation, food, clothing and medicines to the refugees who were forced by the recent political events in their countries to leave their homes. He mentioned specifically the Syrian refugees in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey and the Tuareg refugees in Mauritania, Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso.
He revealed that, despite its meager resources, IIROSA earmarked more than SR 10 million to assist the Syrian refugees. He said 3,200 food baskets were distributed among them in Lebanon and 1,200 in Jordan. "The organization will continue its humanitarian assistance to the Syrian refugees until the circumstances that forced them to leave their homes are cleared," he said.
Basha said IIROSA has established a camp for the Syrian refugees in Lebanon supplied with all necessary equipment including furniture and electricity. He added that the organization has rented 200 housing units for the refugees in Jordan for three months.
Basha recalled that under recent agreements signed with a number of hospitals in Tripoli, Lebanon, IIROSA will extend medical treatment and health care free of charge to the Syrian refugees in Lebanon. "IIROSA will also build temporary pre-fabricated houses in about 30 villages in South Lebanon for the Syrian refugees."
IIROSA to explore best relief methods
