Nansen Refugee Award 2019

The United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees has annoounced that a lawyer, whose work has supported the efforts of the Kyrgyz Republic in becoming the first country in the world to end statelessness, has been selected as the 2019 winner of the UN Refugee Agency’s Nansen Refugee Award. Azizbek Ashurov, through his organization Ferghana Valley Lawyers Without Borders (FVLWB), has helped well over 10,000 people to gain Kyrgyz nationality after they became stateless following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Among them, some 2,000 children will now have the right to an education and a future with the freedom to travel, marry and work.

There were also some regional award winners, who are listed in the link above.  An activist who brings together communities torn apart by conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; a champion of LGBTI rights in El Salvador; a physiotherapist who gets injured Afghans back on their feet; a volunteer who helps Syrians start over in Jordan and an organization negotiating safe routes to Italy for refugees.

KJ