VOA标准英语2009年-Annual Refugee Conference to Open Monday i

By Lisa Schlein
Geneva
27 September 2009

Protection and the human rights of refugees are expected to top the agenda of this year's UN refugee conference, which opens on Monday. Over five days, members of the United Nations High Commissioner¹ for Refugees' governing body will set their program priorities for the coming year and vote on a $2 billion bi-annual budget. 

At the end of last year, the U.N. refugee agency reported that 42 million people around the world had been forcibly uprooted² by conflict and persecution³. This figure includes refugees and people internally displaced in their own countries.

 
Zimbabweans queue at Home Affairs offices in Musina, South Africa, close to the Zimbabwean border, to seek refugee status (File)
The UNHCR helps care for some 25 million of the world's uprooted people. Most of them are in developing countries. The agency says the ranks of displaced people have been growing this year as wars in countries such as Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Somalia have forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes.

UNHCR spokesman, Andrej Mahecic notes that many of these people are unprotected and unable to get the humanitarian⁴ assistance they need because of a lack of security. He says these will be among the concerns discussed at the conference.

"The situation in Somalia is one of the most worrying situations in all the African continent. The U.N. estimates that 3.8 million people out of, I think, nine million people in Somalia are in need of humanitarian assistance," he said. "Among them, there are 1.5 million internally displaced. At the same time, Somalia has produced over one-half million refugees in the neighboring countries, principally in Kenya, Yemen, Djibouti, but also in Uganda and further afield."

In addition to Somalia, Mahecic says many other countries are faced with large problems of internal displacement⁵ caused by long-standing conflicts. These include Colombia, Iraq and the Democratic Republic of Congo. He adds that each of these conflicts has generated refugees who flee beyond their own borders.

Mahecic says solutions to protracted⁶ refugee situations are difficult to find, but that there are some successes. He says delegates at the conference will explore ways to build on these successes and try to replicate⁷ them elsewhere.

UNHCR spokesman Mahecic says Tanzania is responsible for resolving one of the longest lasting⁸ refugee situations in the world. He says that in a gesture of great generosity⁹, Tanzanian authorities agreed to grant citizenship¹⁰ to thousands of Burundian refugees who had fled to Tanzania in 1972.

He says that although many of the refugees decided¹¹ to return to their homes in Burundi, more than 160,000 exiled Burundians have accepted the offer and are being integrated into Tanzanian society. 

1 commissioner   

n.（政府厅、局、处等部门）专员，长官，委员

参考例句：

• The commissioner has issued a warrant for her arrest.专员发出了对她的逮捕令。
• He was tapped for police commissioner.他被任命为警务处长。

2 uprooted   

v.把（某物）连根拔起( uproot的过去式和过去分词 )；根除；赶走；把…赶出家园

参考例句：

• Many people were uprooted from their homes by the flood. 水灾令许多人背井离乡。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The hurricane blew with such force that trees were uprooted. 飓风强烈地刮着，树都被连根拔起了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 persecution   

n. 迫害,烦扰

参考例句：

• He had fled from France at the time of the persecution. 他在大迫害时期逃离了法国。
• Their persecution only serves to arouse the opposition of the people. 他们的迫害只激起人民对他们的反抗。

4 humanitarian   

n.人道主义者，博爱者，基督凡人论者

参考例句：

• She has many humanitarian interests and contributes a lot to them.她拥有很多慈善事业，并作了很大的贡献。
• The British government has now suspended humanitarian aid to the area.英国政府现已暂停对这一地区的人道主义援助。

5 displacement   

n.移置，取代，位移，排水量

参考例句：

• They said that time is the feeling of spatial displacement.他们说时间是空间位移的感觉。
• The displacement of all my energy into caring for the baby.我所有精力都放在了照顾宝宝上。

6 protracted   

adj.拖延的；延长的v.拖延“protract”的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• The war was protracted for four years. 战争拖延了四年。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• We won victory through protracted struggle. 经过长期的斗争，我们取得了胜利。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 replicate   

v.折叠，复制，模写；n.同样的样品；adj.转折的

参考例句：

• The DNA of chromatin must replicate before cell division.染色质DNA在细胞分裂之前必须复制。
• It is also easy to replicate,as the next subsection explains.就像下一个小节详细说明的那样，它还可以被轻易的复制。

8 lasting   

adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持

参考例句：

• The lasting war debased the value of the dollar.持久的战争使美元贬值。
• We hope for a lasting settlement of all these troubles.我们希望这些纠纷能获得永久的解决。

9 generosity   

n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为

参考例句：

• We should match their generosity with our own.我们应该像他们一样慷慨大方。
• We adore them for their generosity.我们钦佩他们的慷慨。

10 citizenship   

n.市民权，公民权，国民的义务(身份)

参考例句：

• He was born in Sweden,but he doesn't have Swedish citizenship.他在瑞典出生，但没有瑞典公民身分。
• Ten years later,she chose to take Australian citizenship.十年后，她选择了澳大利亚国籍。

11 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。