The International Islamic Relief Organization-Saudi Arabia (IIROSA) will organize a symposium titled “The best relief methods to alleviate the suffering of refugees” to commemorate World Refugee Day on June 20. In a press statement, Adnan Basha, secretary general of IIROSA, hailed the occasion and said the goal of the symposium is to determine the best means and methods of reducing the pains and sufferings of the refugees and underline the role to be played in this respect by relief agencies. A number of specialists and concerned officials are expected to attend the symposium in which Gen. Adel Zamzami, director general of Civil Defense in Makkah region, and Khaled Al-Habashi, director of Saudi Red Crescent in the region, will address the audience. Basha praised the role undertaken by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) to provide relief to refugees and urged all to exert more personal effort to provide care to this category of people who were forced by circumstances beyond their control to leave their countries and homes. The Secretary General asked for intensifying media campaigns to shed light on the miseries of refugees with the aim of alleviating their plight. He also asked for expanding the concept of the refugee to include people who are displaced and forced to scatter in their own countries. He revealed that, despite its meager resources, IIROSA earmarked more than SR10 million to assist the Syrian refugees. He said 3200 food baskets were distributed among Syrian refugees in Lebanon in addition to 1200 food baskets among the Syrian refugees in Jordan. “The organization will continue its humanitarian assistance to the Syrian refugees until the circumstances that forced them to leave their homes are cleared,” he said. The secretary general revealed that IIROSA has established a camp for the Syrian refugees in Lebanon supplying it with all necessary equipment including furniture and electricity and has been providing daily meals to 10 families for three months. He added that the organization has rented 200 housing units for Syrian refugees in Jordan for three months. Basha recalled that under recent agreements signed with a number of hospitals in Tripoli, Lebanon, IIROSA will extend medical treatment and health-care free of charge to the Syrian refugees in Lebanon. “IIROSA will also build temporary pre-fabricated houses in about 30 villages in South Lebanon for the Syrian refugees,” he added. Basha recalled that since its establishment in 1979, IIROSA has provided assistance worth more than SR1 billion to more than 22 million refugees in 42 countries through 1057 relief campaigns. The latest world statistics put the number of refugees worldwide to about 40 million including about 7.2 million Palestinians. IIROSA has extended humanitarian aid to more than 800,000 Palestinian refugees in collaboration with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Basha commended the role being played by the UNRWA and urged the countries of the world to extend support to this agency so as to be able to continue its humanitarian aid to Palestinians and other displaced peoples.
