World Refugee Year (1959-1960) on Stamps

On 05.12.1958, UNHCR – The UN Refugee Agency decreed the year 1960 to be the World Refugee Year, encouraging member states to promote permanent solutions for the cause of refugees. Permanent settlement and repatriation solutions were among the desired outcome of this action, as well as appropriate promotion of the actions related to the World Refugee Year. While 60 years later, in 2018, we still struggle to either renounce our ego, or to put the topic of refugees higher up the agenda – we still face the same issues related to refugees, if not to even a larger extent.

Many countries chose to promote the actions related to World Refugee Year by minting stamps. In some cases, we talk about countries which did nothing but mint stamps, unfortunately. Below you will find most of the issues related to the World Refugee Year on stamps.

Afghanistan (perforated and imperforated)

Argentina

Austria

Belgium (stamps and sheet)

Bolivia

Brazil

Chile

Costa Rica

Dominican Republic (regular and surcharged)

Dutch New Guinea

Ecuador

Ethiopia (overprint of previously issued stamps)

France

Federal Germany

Greece

Republic of Guinea

Haiti

Iceland

Indonesia

Iran

Ireland (This is one of my favorite designs, because it actually places a harsh reminder to Christians to reflect on one of the iconic images of their faith as an allegory of itinerant refugees).