Source: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=39525&Cr=UNHCR&Cr1=
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has announced the winner of this year’s Nansen Refugee Award, which will be given to The Society for Humanitarian Solidarity of Yemen.
This Yemeni group provides life-saving assistance to thousands of people who arrive on the country’s shores after making the dangerous boat journey across the Gulf of Aden.
This prestigious prize carries a cash award of $100,000, given by Office of the UNHCR.
“Thousands of refugees owe their survival to the people working for the Society for Humanitarian Solidarity,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres. “Their complete dedication to the service of mankind deserves this global recognition and support.”
Every year, thousands of refugees and migrants trying to escape the violence and poverty in the Horn of Africa put their lives to risk by putting themselves into the hands of smugglers and cross the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden in crowded and often flimsy boats.
Once trapped in the hands of these human traffickers, these people often beaten or abused arrive traumatized and ill on the Yemeni coast. About 60,000 people have made sea crossings to Yemen so far in 2011 – higher than the total for all of 2010. It is estimated that at least 120 people have drowned trying to make the journey.
People from the Society for Humanitarian Solidarity keep a watch on about a third of Yemen’s 2,000- kilometre-long coastline, picking up survivors, providing emergency care and, all too often, burying those who die en route, UNHCR said in a news release.
Nasser Salim Ali Al-Hamairy, founder of Society for Humanitarian Solidarity, said that he would use the Nansen platform to call on the international community to “intensify efforts to improve the situation in Somalia to help dissuade people from attempting the risky crossing.”
This annual award was created in 1954 in the honour of Fridtjof Nansen – the Norwegian explorer, scientist and the first League of Nations High Commissioner for Refugees – and is given to an individual or organization for outstanding work on behalf of refugees.
This year’s award ceremony will be held on October 3 in Geneva.
