Last Monday June 20, it was World Refugee Day. Did it pass you by? It did me.

I was shocked this morning that such an important day had gone and our media house had not even mentioned it/ I am sorry.

Normally, on important days such as this, and even the not so important ones, the Cayman Islands announces them with the appropriate fanfare with messages from the government minister whose portfolio it covers backed up sometimes by a message from the premier.

In this case it would have been the Deputy Governor with perhaps The Governor weighing in.

This time – ZERO.

And it is not as if we don’t see refugees. We even have them locked up here.

On the World Refugee website it states:

“Our responses to refugees must be grounded in our shared values of responsibility sharing, non-discrimination, and human rights and in international refugee law, including the principle of non-refoulement.” — UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon

“In a world where violence forces hundreds of families to flee each day, the UN Refugee Agency believes now is the time to show world leaders that the global public stands with refugees, and it will launch its #WithRefugees petition on June 20th to send a message to governments that they must work together and do their fair share for refugees.

“The #WithRefugees petition will be delivered to UN headquarters in New York ahead of the UN High Level Meeting on Refugees and Migrants, scheduled for the 19th September. The petition asks governments to:

Ensure every refugee child gets an education.
Ensure every refugee family has somewhere safe to live.
Ensure every refugee can work or learn new skills to make a positive contribution
to their community.
World Refugee Day has been marked on 20 June, ever since the UN General Assembly, on 4 December 2000, adopted resolution 55/76 where it noted that 2001 marked the 50th anniversary of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, and that the Organization of African Unity (OAU) had agreed to have International Refugee Day coincide with Africa Refugee Day on 20 June.

“We Stand #WithRefugees 2016 – Please Stand With Us.”

SOURCE: http://www.un.org/en/events/refugeeday/index.shtml

Why did it pass us by? Is it because we don’t want to draw attention to what we have in our own back door?

Or don’t we care a damn?