[2015/11/26] Korea’s borders crack open for refugees

[lancelot]

Korea’s borders crack open for refugees

But experts urge more help for people fleeing nations including Syria, Myanmar

Nov 16,2015

Korea isn’t the most likely place for a wartime refugee to end up.

But Fouad Mejano, 28, is one of hundreds of Syrian asylum seekers to Korea who fled days filled with violence and fear.

Three years ago, Mejano defected from the Syrian Army. Afraid for his life, he crossed the border into Turkey.

“When I was in the army, we had to follow the orders of our superior officers, whether it was to shoot someone or bomb something,” he said, recalling the horrors as life as a young soldier. “If we didn’t follow orders, we were the ones shot.”

	Fouad Mejano

Mejano was forced to join the army at 23 years old, and quickly began looking for a means of escape.

“One day, I asked my supervisor for permission to leave my post for 24 hours. Then I fled toward Turkey. At times I traveled to the border by car and once walked for 13 hours straight across the mountain range.”

Once in Turkey, he said a friend recommended that he seek asylum in Korea. So in 2013, he came to Seoul.

At his home in Dongducheon, Gyeonggi, Mejano showed to the Korea JoongAng Daily his F-2 identification card and his certificate granting him official refugee status in Korea.

On Dec. 16, 2014, the Seoul Immigration Office issued him a Certificate of Refugee Status Recognition. The following week, he was issued an Alien Registration Card and an F-2 visa.

The Alien Registration number can serve in lieu of a Korean national identification number and enables him to freely seek employment or receive education and conduct daily activities and transactions like banking with ease.

Mejano recalled that the application process was rigorous. He went through two rounds of interviews that lasted for hours at the Seoul Immigration Office, where he was questioned on his anti-government activities and why his life was at stake in Syria.

Unlike most other Syrian refugees, who have been granted humanitarian status and a G-1 temporary residence visa, having refugee status enables him benefits like health insurance.

Mejano is among some 800 Syrian asylum seekers in Korea, though he is one of just three Syrians to ever have been granted refugee status here.

Over the past 21 years, the Korean Ministry of Justice has granted nearly 530 people refugee status. 

While Korea is not known for accepting many refugees, it is the first East Asian country to adopt its own comprehensive legislation detailing the process by which refugee status can be granted, the Refugee Act, enacted in 2012. 

This year, it also has taken initial measures to launch its first resettlement project in cooperation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), to bring approximately 100 refugees from Myanmar to Korea over the next three years.

<QUESTION> 

- What do you think about opening borders to asylum seekers?
- How could we deal with the people from Islamic countries living in Korea?
- Do you think we should be cautious of terrorists from the outside world?