看著2024年巴黎奥运会现场直播时，请留意难民奥运代表队。为他们加油喝彩。
他们是在经历了种种苦难和危及生命的旅程中幸存下来，逃离了祖国的炮火、迫害和暴力下，来到了奥运会，这是值得全场为之起立鼓掌。
联合国难民署(UNHCR) 估计，由于一些贪婪、自私和邪恶的领导人煽动和发起战争，被迫流离失所难民人数达到创纪录的1.173亿人，主要来自乌克兰、阿富汗、巴勒斯坦、叙利亚、索马里、苏丹等地。
其中数以百万计的儿童通过步行和海上的危险行程，在没有任何指引下，出走寻求庇护。许多人没有成功。他们在途中被杀害、遭到折磨或失踪。
其中一些人幸运地以难民身分在国外获得庇护，来自世界各地的36名难民运动员正在参与2024年巴黎奥运会。他们是来自11个国家／地区的难民，参加羽球、拳击、霹雳舞、皮划艇（激流回旋和静水）、脚车（公路脚车赛）、柔道、射击、游泳、跆拳道、举重和摔角等项目。
他们的一些公开故事既感人肺腑，又鼓舞人心。
在2015年，尤丝拉马迪尼(Yusra Mardini) 和她的妹妹莎拉(Sarah) 逃离叙利亚内战，穿越黎巴嫩和土耳其，与18名难民一起挤到一艘只可容纳6人的小船上偷渡到欧洲。在沿著爱琴海前往希腊行程中，他们的小船翻覆了。马迪尼姊妹跳入水中，将失事的小船推了三个小时才到达岸边，拯救了所有人的生命。
2017年5月，马迪尼成为联合国难民署有史以来最年轻的亲善大使。马迪尼也是2020年东京奥运开幕式上难民奥运代表队旗手，她在100公尺蝶泳比赛中获得第三名。
2010年，少年贾玛阿卜杜勒马吉 (Jamal Abdelmaji) 为逃离苏丹达尔富尔的种族冲突而步行穿越西奈沙漠。他在以色列寻求庇护，并参加了2020年东京奥运会，在5000公尺赛跑中创造了个人最佳成绩。他也参与本届巴黎奥运1万公尺比赛。
2011年，家乡阿勒颇饱受战争蹂躏的叙利亚难民、跳远运动员莫哈默阿萨拉米（Mohammad Alsalami）逃往土耳其。他乘坐橡皮艇横渡地中海到达希腊。从那里，他徒步前往柏林，最终于2015年获得庇护。
这些是怎么发生的？
2016年组队
2016年，国际奥委会（IOC）主席托马斯巴赫（Thomas Bach）提出了组建难民运动员代表队，并为他们的训练、参加比赛和行程费用提供资金。这些项目均由奥林匹克难民基金会负责。
在难民中辨识这些人才是一项艰钜的任务。例如，苏丹运动员是在肯尼亚卡库马难民营，由肯尼亚长跑名将泰格拉洛鲁佩（Tegla Roupe）命名的和平基金会举办的选拔赛中挑选出来。
泰格拉洛鲁佩本身就是一个传奇。
1994年，泰格拉洛鲁佩在1994年和1998年友好运动会上（ Goodwill Games）赤脚赛跑，并赢得了1万公尺的冠军。她在1997年至1999年间赢得了三个世界半程马拉松冠军，并保持著2万公尺、2万5000公尺和3万公尺的田径世界纪录。在2000年悉尼奥运会，她在1万公尺长跑比赛中获得第五名。
现在，洛鲁佩在全世界挖掘体育人才。她在有17万名难民的联合国难民署卡库马难民营举办了10公里比赛，并选出了10名难民参加2016年里约奥运。
他们中的许多人，像洛鲁佩一样，赤脚奔跑。一旦获选，这些难民就必须与在最先进赛道上训练多年的精英选手竞争。
尽管他们人生旅程充满了挫折，并且还在为战争中失去的家人感到悲伤，但他们还是在有限设施下进行训练，以参加奥运会。
巴黎奥运马拉松选手塔什洛维尼加布里（Tachlowini Gabriyesos）从非洲厄立特里亚不断升级暴力冲突中逃离时，年仅12岁。他和朋友一起穿越沙漠草原来到衣索比亚，最后抵达以色列。
来自喀麦隆的辛蒂恩甘巴（Cindy Ngamba）赢得了女子75公斤级拳击奖牌，距离奥运金牌仅一步之遥。恩甘巴之所以逃离喀麦隆，因为她是同性恋者，这在当地仍然是一种刑事犯罪。
难民奥运代表队，还有许多值得一提的人物-如霹雳舞的选手玛尼莎泰拉Manizha Talash、羽球选手多莎雅瓦丽瓦法（Dorsa Yavarivafa）、举重选手拉米若摩拉（Ramiro Mora）、游泳选学艾拉玛索（Alaa Maso）和柔道选手卡文玛吉（Kavan Majidi）。
体育凝聚人心
对这些选手来说，在他们现有的处境下，要有艰苦的训练和严格饮食安排，还要克服伤病，以便他们能够冲刺得更快、游得更远、以取得更好的成绩，无疑是一个更大的挑战。
尽管如此，他们的参与并不只是为了彰显运动员的卓越表现，而是为了向世界重新讲述无辜平民被剥夺家人和土地的残酷侵害故事。这也向所有其他难民传达了这样的讯息：他们有代表，他们有发言权……而且他们很重要。
由于冲突和迫害，全球被迫流离失所的人数飙升至历史新高，截至2024年5月，被迫流离失所人数已达1.2亿人（联合国难民署数据）。众所周知，争夺霸权的致命战争绝对没有全球价值。
相反，体育世界将世界完美地汇聚到一个舞台上。参与者可能有不同的背景和不同的经历，但他们相互尊重地相互竞争。
对于我们其他人来说，观看每场体育赛事都有著一种充满自豪、敬意和激动的感觉。
瓦珊蒂《看他们如何比赛》的原文：See How They Run
While the Paris 2024 Olympics is streamed live, please look out for the Refugee Olympic athletes. Cheer the loudest for them.
They deserve a standing ovation for surviving harrowing and life-threatening journeys, while escaping bombs, persecution and violence in their home countries to make it to the Olympics.
The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimates there were a record 117.3 million forcibly displaced people mainly from - Ukraine, Afghanistan, Palestine, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and beyond - because of greedy, selfish and evil leaders who flag and fuel wars.
Millions of these are children who have fled by foot and by sea in dangerous expeditions to seek asylum, with no guidance on where to go. Many didn’t make it. They had been killed, tortured or had simply disappeared along the way.
Some were fortunate to have sought asylum in foreign countries as refugees and 36 members from all over the world are participating in the Paris 2024 Olympics. They are refugees from 11 countries participating in badminton, boxing, break dancing, canoe slalom, canoe sprint, cycling, judo, shooting, swimming, taekwondo, weightlifting and wrestling.
Some of their public narratives are heart rendering and yet so inspirational.
In 2015, Yusra Mardini and her sister Sarah fled the Syrian Civil War, travelled through Lebanon and Turkey, and were smuggled with 18 refugees into a tiny boat meant for six. Along the Aegean Sea to Greece their dinghy capsized. The Mardini sisters jumped into the water and pushed the wrecked dinghy for three hours to the shores while saving everyone’s life.
In May 2017, Mardini became the youngest-ever Goodwill Ambassador for the UNHCR. Mardini, who carried the Olympic Flag during the Tokyo 2020 opening ceremony, achieved third place in the 100m swimming butterfly.
In the year 2010 teenager Jamal Abdelmaji walked through the Sinai Desert as he fled ethnic violence in Darfur, Sudan. He sought asylum in Israel and took part in Tokyo Olympics 2020 where he set a personal best in the 5,000-meter run. He is now competing in the 10,000-meter race in Paris.
In 2011, long jumper Mohammad Alsalami, a Syrian refugee in the war-torn hometown of Aleppo, fled to Turkey. He crossed the Mediterranean sea in a rubber boat to Greece. From there he trekked by foot to Berlin where he was eventually granted asylum in 2015. He is competing in the Paris Games, 2024, after a long marathon struggle.
How did this happen?
In 2016, International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach provided a pathway to identify refugee athletes and fund them throughout their training, participation in competitions and travel preparation. Each of these programs are managed by the Olympic Refugee Foundation.
Identifying these talents among refugees was a daunting task. For instance, the Sudanese athletes were spotted in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, during trials held by the Tegla Loroupe Peace Foundation.
Tegla Roupe herself is an inspiration.
In 1994, she ran barefoot and won the 10,000 meters at the 1994 and 1998 Goodwill Games. She notched three world half-marathon titles between 1997 and 1999, and held world records for 20,000m, 25,000m, and 30,000m on the track. In the 2000 Sydney Olympics, she was fifth place in the 10,000m marathon.
Now, Loroupe crusades the world tracking talents for sports. She staged a 10-km race in Kakuma, a UNHCR refugee camp of 170,000 refugees, and chose 10 refugees for the Rio Olympics in 2016.
Many of them, like Loroupe, ran barefooted. Once selected these refuges have to compete with elite participants who had trained for years on state-of-the-art tracks.
In spite of daunting memories of their journeys and grieving for the families they have lost in the wars, they have trained within limited facilities to arrive at the Olympics.
Tachlowini Gabriyesos, a Marathon runner in the Paris Olympics, was only 12 when he escaped escalating violence in Eritrea. He walked through the Savanna Desert to Ethiopia with a friend and landed in Israel eventually.
Cindy Ngamba from Cameroon has won 75kg Women’s boxing medal and is one foot away from clinching the Olympic medal. Ngamba had to flee Cameroon because she is homosexual, which remains a criminal offence in the country.
There are others worth mentioning here - Manizha Talash (break dancing) Dorsa Yavarivafa (badminton) and Ramiro Mora (weightlifting) Alaa Maso(swimming) and Kavan Majidi (judo).
For them gruelling training schedules and exacting diets, and overcoming injuries so that they can sprint faster, swim longer, and push harder is intensified and a much bigger challenge because of their circumstances.
Nonetheless, this is not about medals for athletic excellence but to re-tell the world, the stories of brutal violation where the innocent civilians were robbed off their families and their lands. It is also a message to all other refugees that they feel they are being represented, and that they have a voice … and they matter.
Forced displacement is soaring to historic new heights globally, driven by conflict, persecution and has reached 120 million as of May 2024 (UNHCR). It is common sense that while deadly wars for supremacy have absolutely no global value.
On the contrary, the world of sports beautifully brings the world together to one stage. The participants may have different backgrounds and different journeys but they compete with each other with mutual respect.
For the rest of us, watching every sports event has been a sense of pride, respect and excitement.
