(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Doha: Qatar Committee for the Alliance of Civilisation (QCAC) organised a conference, via video conference titled, 'the impact of coronavirus (COVID-19) on the situation of migrants and displaced persons.
The conference started with a speech by Secretary-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Chairman of Qatar Committee for the Alliance of Civilisations HE Dr. Ahmed bin Hassan Al Hammadi, in which he welcomed the participants, pointing out that this year witnessed a large movement of migration and displacement, either due to economic motives to obtain employment opportunities or because of wars and armed conflicts in various parts of the world, especially from the countries of the Middle East and North Africa to European countries and the United States of America.
He said that the number of migrants around the world reached about 270 million in 2019, making up about 3.5 percent of the world's population, according to the World Migration Report, and there are about 41.3 million displaced people who had to flee their homes at the end of 2018, a record number since the International Organization for Migration began monitoring displacement in 1998.
He pointed out that the issue of migration represents one of the four most important areas in which the United Nations Alliance of Civilisations Secretariat is interested in, considering that migration plays an important and vital role in defining civilisations, achieving rapprochement between peoples, and positive coexistence between different ethnic, religious and cultural groups.
He added that participants discussed in the conference the COVID-19 crisis and its impact on the situation of migrants and displaced people, as the crisis has unprecedented implications because it is a complex multidimensional crisis, affecting economic, social, political and security levels, and there is no doubt that it has had a great impact on the global economy, migrants and marginalised groups due to weak protection systems and their social rights.
Director of the Programme for Diplomatic Studies and International Cooperation at Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Dr. Marwan Kabalan, delivered a lecture in which he reviewed the role of pandemics in human history and their impact on political and economic transformations and on human lives.
Dr. Kabalan stressed the need to make arrangements that require international agreement by all parties to reduce the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in north Syria, which is inhabited by 3.5 million people.
Dr. Abdul Qadir Latrash, an expert on international migration, who works as an expert in the Permanent Population Committee in Qatar, started his speech by thanking the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the QCAC for the interest in the issue of immigrants and displaced persons, pointing out that the countries of the world have paid attention to the issue of immigration and migrants and put in place approaches in this field since 1960s of the last century.
Dr. Hamid Al Hashemi, a professor of sociology at the International University in London, talked about the repercussions of the crisis, which included all aspects of life in all countries of the world.
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