Forced Migration- Problems, Challenges and Theological Responses

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About the Book People trying to migrate to other countries drown in sewage canals freeze to death in remote forests; die of dehydration and starvation after their vehicles break down in the middle of the desert or their boat capsizes. When people in hundreds and thousands are forced to flee due to conflict or war or other circumstances leaving everything behind them. This volume precisely addresses the problems of forced migration and the challenges they face and thus offers theological responses.

Rev. Dr. Sigamoney Shakespeare is a Theological pedagogue and researcher. Presently, he coordinates the M.Th. (SEST) program at Hanshin University and serves as lecturer at United Graduate School of theology, Yonsei University, South Korea.

About the Authors Dr. Indukuri John Mohan Razu, Professor of Social Ethics, Author and Social Critic. Presently serves as a Consultant and Research Fellow at the ACTS Academy of Higher Education, Bengaluru.

Foreword I would like to share with you two real stories of my two friends who are living in Manchester, UK. I have known these two friends for many years. Their stories are here in short.

The Sri Lankan Civil War fought in Sri Lanka from 1983 to 2009 have forced many people to face forced migration from their country. Since 1983, there was a war against the government led by the Velupillai Prabhakaran-led Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Fernando is a Sri Lankan Tamil, Catholic Christian, at the age of 30 he had decided to leave his country and escaped from his own home country; he left his young wife and three children at their tender age, entered in to Tamilnadu then travelled to Delhi in North India, flew to Kyrgyzstan and travelled by train (hiding in a crowed toilet for 56 hours); their journey continues during day time hiding in forests and night time walking and some hours hiding in a good truck and travelled towards Germany with the help of human traffic smugglers... Walked with bare feet to Germany and there arrested by German boarder army, released after a few weeks then crossed to France... stayed in France for a few months and finally decided to cross the boarders of France and arrived in London - as a refugee, declared as a stateless person and imprisoned in a refugee camp. During his walk he had witnessed so many women and elderly fellow country sojourners fell on their way and died... the journey continued towards the destiny.

Ahamed is an Iraqi Shia Muslim, decided to leave his country Iraq at the age of 20. As we all aware of the Iran-Iraq war, war during Saddam Husain, and other internal religious and political trauma; these wars and persecution in Iraq forced the Iraqi nationals to flee from their own country. About 100,000 Iraqis escaped to Jordan and Syria and in this escape 55% comprise are Shia Muslims; many were migrated to Europe. Ahamed escaped Iraq walked 6 months to arrive in France. Ahamed and his friends stayed in a forest for 6 months, he was helped by French villagers for food and drinks.

Preface There may be many who would agree with what Gael Garcia Bernal says: "Migration is as natural as breathing, as eating, as sleeping. It is part of life, part of nature. So, we have to find a way of establishing a proper scenario for modern migration." Those who are of the same view tends to justify that migration has been there in the past, it is in our midst at present 'here and now and it will continue to be there in the future too. While others who belong to the divergent view say that there are many factors that contribute where mass exodus of thousands and lakhs of people who are forced to migrate within and between countries. Therefore, for them migration is not natural, but forced upon for numerous reasons having multiple facets. For example, some of the recent happenings such as the war in Ukraine has set the fastest mass migration in Europe at least in the last three decades. When compared with the Balkan wars of the 1990s and the testimonies that came to the fore of the vast population of those displaced following World War 11 pricks our conscience and thus questions the very purpose and meaning of our existence. The flight of Ukrainians is at least more than 10 times as high as one-week record people entering Europe during the 2015 migration crisis, and nearly double the number of refugees during first 11 days of the Kosovo war in 1999.

Recently forty-six people were found dead in an abandoned tractor-trailer in the sweltering Texas heat is the latest tragedy to claim the lives of migrants smuggled across the border from Mexico to the United States. Sixteen people were hospitalized, including four children. A city worker heard a cry for help from the truck on a lonely San Antonio Road shortly before 6 PM (local time) witnessed gruesome scene. Police came laid the bodies on the ground. The Mayor of San Antonio said the 46 who died had "families who were likely trying to find a better life." People migrate to within and between borders for safety and security.

It is among the deadliest of the tragedies that have claimed thousands of lives in recent decades as people attempt to cross the US border from Mexico. The migrants died in 2017 after being trapped inside a truck parked at a Walmart in San Antonio. The people were suffering from heat stroke and exhaustion.

**Contents and Sample Pages**