For refugee policy: UN awards ex-Chancellor Merkel Prize – “Real leader”

Created: 04/10/2022 13:06

By: Fabian Mueller

Angela Merkel (CDU), former Chancellor.

© Markus Schreiber/AP-Pool/dpa/archive image

Former Chancellor Angela Merkel is awarded the renowned Nansen Refugee Prize by the UN.

The award committee recognized your commitment to asylum seekers in Germany.

Berlin - Former Chancellor Angela Merkel receives the Nansen Prize of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

The organization announced on Tuesday in Geneva.

UNHCR recognizes their role in 2015 and 2016 when Germany took in more than 1.2 million refugees and asylum seekers.

"Dr.

Merkel has shown what can be achieved when politicians act correctly and work to find solutions to the world's challenges instead of passing the responsibility on to others," the UNHCR said.

The prize is endowed with 150,000 dollars (about 152,000 euros).

The prize, named after the Norwegian explorer, scientist and diplomat Fridtjof Nansen, has been awarded annually by the UNHCR to an individual, group or organization that has made an outstanding contribution to the protection of refugees, displaced persons or stateless persons since 1954.

Merkel receives UN refugee award: "Was a real leader"

Filippo Grandi, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said: "By committing herself to the protection and the possibility of a new start for such a large number of refugees, Angela Merkel showed great moral and political courage." And further: " She was a real leader, appealing to our common humanity and standing firmly against those who invoked fear and discrimination.”

Merkel will receive the award at a ceremony in Geneva on October 10.

The most prominent awardees include former US Senator Edward Kennedy, brother of the assassinated John F. Kennedy, the Memorial Human Rights Center from Russia, opera singer Luciano Pavarotti, former German President Richard von Weizsäcker and the organization Doctors Without Borders.

In 1954, the first Nansen Refugee Award was presented to Eleanor Roosevelt, human rights activist and wife of the 32nd US President Franklin D. Roosevelt.