By: Lucia Maduma

Every day across the world people make a difficult decision to leave their homes. War, persecution, environmental disaster and poverty are just some of the reasons why a person
might feel that they have to leave their family, community or country.

According to the UN report of 18th June 2015, refugees leave their countries because they cannot deal with poverty and need to be safe with their families, because the government
can’t protect them; they also leave because they want better health services.

All this issues are created by the government and politicians who want power and cannot distribute resources wisely, at the end of the day people suffer. There are also economic
migrants who go to other countries in search of a better life for their families.

There are thousands of Somalians who became refugees in South Africa because of civil war and have started their own shops.

“I came here because there was war back home in Somali. When I got here I opened a shop where I’m selling blankets with the help of my friends who were here long before me,” said
Mohamed Mohamed.

According to the report released on Thursday 18th of June of The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the main agency mandated to provide protection and
humanitarian services to those fleeing persecution, which is the UN refugee agency said that there are 59.5 million refugees around the world.

They have fled political and religious persecution, been caught up in ethnic conflict, and subjected to violence because of their sexual orientation. There are many other reasons that
people become refugees, but above all most people are desperately in need of protection.

International agencies and local organizations do their best to assist everyone, but caring for the worlds most vulnerable is a daunting task.

“I left my country in 2005 with my family, life has been better here in South Africa than in Angola. I have a small business of selling food to taxi drivers at a place called Esibayeni in
Pinetown,” said Helena Mgomzane who lives at Clermont in Durban.

“I left Lesotho in January and came to South Africa to look for work.

I have a security certificate. It’s hard to find employment in Lesotho because of the chaos that have been happening and the poor economy,” said Mr Moshobo Hulane, who was looking for work at
Truworths CBD.

He said not only ordinary people leave their homes but also rich and well known politicians do too.

A good example is the former Lesotho Prime Minister Thomas Thabane, and the chairperson of the All Basotho Convention party, who left Lesotho to stay in South Africa because he
believed that the army commander Lt. General Tlali Kamoli wanted to assassinate him because he fired him and suspended the parliament.