State Magazine April 2012 : Page 17
Left: Refugee Coordinator Greg Shaw helps pump water at a refugee camp in Bétou, Republic of Congo. Photo by Robin Prinz Below: Refugee Coordinator Inger Tangborn greets an elderly woman at the Nahr el Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon. She is one of 30,000 Palestinian refugees who lost their homes in 2007. Photo by U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East enjoy being invited to tea at Tibetan house-holds and who are willing to work really hard on humanitarian issues that truly make a difference.” Great Lakes Regional Refugee Coordinator Greg Shaw, based in Kam-pala, DRC, agreed. He covers multiple refugee and IDP issues throughout his region, often in remote areas of Burundi, the DRC, the Republic of Con-go, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. While there is some progress— more than 1 million Rwandan refugees who fled the 1994 genocide have since returned— those displaced by ongoing conflict in the DRC require immediate assistance. Shaw recalled visiting IDP camps in the DRC’s cold, wet highlands, camps that are a haven for those driven from their homes by violent militias, but where living is difficult. His group barely reached one camp due to the nearly impassable mountain track. Upon their arrival, Congolese women dressed in bright traditional clothing emerged from makeshift shelters and greeted the group with a custom-ary welcome dance, thanking the American people for their lifesaving support. But Shaw soon learned of residents’ urgent needs. Every day, the camp’s women must de-cide whether to risk venturing into the nearby forest to forage for food and firewood. They and their children face the ever present danger of assault and rape by armed criminals. “The bravery and resilience that these rape survivors embody in the face of the horrific violence in eastern Congo always reminds me of the need to work harder on their behalf,” said Shaw. Melissa Pitotti, a member of the Civil Service in a limited non-career assignment to the Refugee and Migration Affairs section at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in Geneva, said she’s concerned refugees with disabilities are being overlooked and stig-matized. During a 2009 mission to Eastern Sudan, she interviewed many disabled refugees at the Sudanese Red Crescent-run clinic in Wad Sherifey camp. Nearly 600 of the camp’s 15,000 residents were injured or disabled in some way. Pitotti said she saw the need for humanitarian-oriented diplomacy, and back in Geneva in 2010 she chaired intergovernmental negotiations on a UNHCR resolu-tion to improve protection and assistance for displaced persons with disabilities. Although many nations were reluctant to commit scarce national resources to non-nationals or to grant the U.N. more authority in their territory, they eventually worked out a solution. In October 2010, 79 UNHCR ex-ecutive committee member nations unanimously called for the protection of refugees and other persons with disabilities against all discrimina-tion and for the provision of sustainable and appropriate support to them. “I’m proud of our country’s record on persons with disabilities,” Pitotti said, asserting the United States has the most advanced sys-tem for protecting the rights of persons with disabilities at home and is leading by example. In Iraq, Refugee Assistance Coordinator Oni Blair oversees millions of U.S. dollars STATE.GOV/STATEMAG // STATE MAGAZINE 17
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