4 months ago
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Barham Salih has known torture and the wrenching nonaccomplishment of exile. Four decades aft his ain ordeal, helium has taken the helm of the UN exile bureau arsenic it grapples with a backing shortfall and ever-rising needs.
A erstwhile Iraqi president, Mr. Salih, 65, became the archetypal erstwhile caput of authorities to tally the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) astatine the commencement of the year.
“It is simply a profound motivation and ineligible responsibility,” Mr. Salih told AFP during his archetypal travel successful the caller relation — to Kakuma exile campy successful Kenya.
“I cognize the symptom of losing a home, losing your friends,” helium said.
The Kakuma exile camp, which Mr. Salih visited connected Sunday (January 11, 2026), is East Africa’s 2nd largest, hosting astir 300,000 radical from South Sudan, Somalia, Uganda and Burundi. It has been successful spot since 1992.
The satellite “should not let this to continue”, Mr. Salih said, praising a caller inaugural by Kenya to crook its camps into economical hubs.
“We should not lone support refugees... but besides alteration them to person much durable solutions,” helium said, portion adding: “The amended mode is to person bid established successful their ain countries... obscurity is nicer than home.”
‘Electric shocks, beating’
The lad of a justice and a women’s rights activist, Mr. Salih was calved successful 1960 successful Sulaymaniyah, a stronghold of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which sought self-determination for Iraq’s Kurds.
He went into exile successful Iran successful 1974, spending a twelvemonth astatine a schoolhouse for refugees. As a teen successful 1979, backmost successful Iraq and already a subordinate of the PUK, helium was arrested doubly by erstwhile dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime.
“I was released aft 43 days aft having suffered torture, electrical shocks, beating,” helium said.
Upon release, helium inactive managed to fertile among Iraq’s apical 3 precocious schoolhouse students, according to a erstwhile colleague, earlier fleeing with his household to Britain wherever helium earned a grade successful machine engineering and a doctorate.
Mr. Salih has “real acquisition of exile... He brings a idiosyncratic position of displacement, which is precise important,” Filippo Grandi, his predecessor astatine UNHCR, told AFP past month.
Mr. Salih went connected to a palmy vocation successful Iraqi Kurdistan and Iraq’s national authorities aft Hussein’s overthrow successful 2003, holding the mostly ceremonial relation of president from 2018 to 2022.
‘Serious fund cuts’
Refugee numbers person doubled to 117 cardinal successful the past decade, the UNHCR said successful June, but backing has dropped sharply, particularly since Donald Trump returned to the White House.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres precocious praised Mr. Salih’s acquisition arsenic a “crisis negotiator and designer of nationalist reforms” astatine a clip erstwhile the bureau faces “very superior challenges”.
“We person had precise superior fund cuts past year. A batch of unit person been reduced,” Mr. Salih told AFP.
“But we person to understand, we person to adapt,” helium said, calling for “more ratio and accountability” portion besides insisting the planetary assemblage meets its “legal and motivation obligations to help”.
