The General Secretariat of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) today Tuesday at its headquarters in Jeddah organized a workshop titled: “Refugees under International Law.”
The workshop witnessed the participation of Mr Sahir Mohyudeen, Deputy Representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to the Gulf Cooperation Council and Sarah Saber Khan, Assistant Protection Officer at the UNHCR in Riyadh.
The OIC statement at the workshop was delivered by Ambassador Hassan Ali, Director of the Department of Legal Affairs at the OIC General Secretariat. He praised the role of the OIC and the UNHCR in responding to the needs of the refugees and mitigating their plight, given the priority accorded to the issue in the OIC humanitarian agenda.
Ambassador Hassan explained that the timing of the workshop coincides with a critical international moment characterized by rising numbers of forcibly displaced persons because of conflicts and disasters, especially in some OIC Member States, raising the challenge of finding lasting solutions to the humanitarian crisis of refugees and displaced persons.
He went on to say that the workshop also comes in the context of the OIC’s efforts to support refugees as part of the General Secretariat’s activities in partnership with the UNHCR. This, he said, is in line with the 2022-2025 Action Plan based on the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the two parties in 1988 and relevant OIC Summit and Council of Foreign Ministers’ resolutions.
The workshop highlighted the legal and international protection frameworks for refugees in light of the 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees, the 2018 Global Compact for Refugees, and the 2016 New York Declaration for Refugees.—PR
