Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel to get UNHCR award for protecting refugees

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has announced that Dr Angela Merkel, the former chancellor of Germany, will receive the 2022 UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award for showing "true leadership" in protecting refugees. 

Each year, the award – named after the Norwegian explorer, scientist, diplomat and humanitarian Fridtjof Nansen – is given to an individual, group or organisation who has gone above and beyond the call of duty to protect refugees, internally displaced or stateless people, said a press release issued by UNHCR Tuesday (4 October). 

Under then Federal Chancellor Merkel's leadership, Germany welcomed more than 1.2 million refugees and asylum seekers in 2015 and 2016 – at the height of the conflict in Syria and amid deadly violence in other places. 

At that time, the then Chancellor said, "It was a situation which put our European values to the test as seldom before. It was no more and no less than a humanitarian imperative." 

She called on her fellow Germans to reject divisive nationalism and urged them instead to be "self-assured and free, compassionate and open-minded". 

Filippo Grandi, the UN high commissioner for refugees, praised former Federal Chancellor Merkel's determination to protect asylum-seekers and to stand up for human rights, humanitarian principles and international law. 

"By helping more than a million refugees to survive and rebuild, Angela Merkel displayed great moral and political courage," Grandi said. 

"It was true leadership, appealing to our common humanity, standing firm against those who preached fear and discrimination. She showed what can be achieved when politicians take the right course of action and work to find solutions to the world's challenges rather than simply shift responsibility to others." 

The selection committee said it was recognising former Federal Chancellor Merkel's "leadership, courage and compassion in ensuring the protection of hundreds of thousands of desperate people" as well as her efforts to find "viable long-term solutions" for those seeking safety. 

The UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award selection committee has also honoured four regional winners for 2022. They are Mbera Fire Brigade, an all-volunteer refugee firefighting group in Mauritania that has extinguished more than 100 bushfires and planted thousands of trees to preserve lives, livelihoods and the local environment; Vicenta González, whose nearly 50 years of service to displaced and other vulnerable people included establishing a cacao cooperative in Costa Rica to support refugees and host-community women, including survivors of domestic violence; Meikswe Myanmar, a humanitarian organization that assists communities in need, including internally displaced people, with emergency items, health care, education, and livelihoods opportunities; and Dr Nagham Hasan, an Iraqi gynaecologist providing medical and psychosocial care to Yazidi girls and women who survived persecution, enslavement and gender-based violence at the hands of extremist groups in northern Iraq. 

The award will be presented to the former German Chancellor in Geneva on 10 October at a ceremony along with the regional winners.