Exiled Tibetan PM expresses solidarity with refugees across the world

Tibetan Prime Minister-in-exile Lobsang Sangay on Monday, expressed solidarity with refugees around the world on the occasion of World Refugee Day in Dharamsala.

June 20 is observed as World Refugee Day around the world. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and civic groups around the world host events in order to draw the public's attention to millions of refugees worldwide who have been forced to flee their homes due to war, conflict or persecution.

"On the one hand, to observe the World Refugee Day is to be sad about all those countries and the people, and on the other hand, is to have resolve and determination. Pledge yourself to fight on, to end your status of refugee and go back home, and that is the wish of the Tibetan people, and our solidarity goes out to all the refugees around the world," said Sangay.

According to the UNHCR, 65.3 million people were uprooted worldwide last year, many of them fleeing wars only to face walls, tougher laws and xenophobia as they reach borders.

The figure, which jumped from 59.5 million in 2014 and by 50 percent in five years, means that 1 in every 113 people on the planet is now a refugee, asylum-seeker or internally displaced in a home country.

Tibetans escaped into India in 1959 when there was a threat to life during occupation of Tibet by China. Since then Tibetans have been living in-exile here and struggling for their homeland.

"Being a refugee, the saddest thing is that I have never been to my country that is Tibet and I have never touched the land and even I have never tasted the water of Tibet so this is the saddest thing as I am a Tibetan and I should go to Tibet as that is our country but eventually we can't go," said Tenzin Saldon, a Tibetan refugee.

According to a report, two million new asylum claims were lodged in industrialized countries in 2015. Nearly 100,000 were children unaccompanied or separated from their families, a three-fold rise on 2014 and a historic high.