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IOC Names First Ever Refugee Olympic Team; Paris Bracing for Near Historic Flood. Aired 8:00a-9:00a ET
Aired June 03, 2016 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[08:00:17] KRISTIE LU STOUT, HOST: I'm Kristie Lu Stout in Hong Kong. And welcome to News Stream.
Now, they fled war and violence, leaving their homes and country's behind, but any minute now, they will create Olympic history: a handful
will be given the ultimate opportunity to join the ranks of the world's elite athletes. The International Olympic Committee is putting together
the very first team entirely made up of refugees.
Now, we are following developments the way only way CNN can. We have got David McKenzie, he is at a training camp for refugee athletes in Kenya.
Nick Paton Walsh is looking at the state of the games in Rio de Janeiro, but
first Shasta Darlington has just met up with one of the 43 athletes who could be chosen.
And Shasta, we know this is going to be historic. Give us a preview of what is to come, what the IOC will announce?
SHASTA DARLINGTON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Sure, Kristie.
First, let me introduce you here. I'm with Yolande and Papole. They are originally from the Republic of Congo. They've been in Brazil for
three years. They are both hoping to be on the list when the team is announced just a short time from now.
First, I'd like you to get to know a bit about the story fo how Papole got here and what he's waiting for. So, let's watch that first.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SHASTA DARLINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Popoli Missinga (ph) has reined in his brutal tactics, aiming for gold as part of the new
refugee team, training in his adopted home, Brazil.
"My fight in the Olympics would be for all of the refugees," he says, "to give them faith in their dreams."
DARLINGTON: But it was a violent road that started in the Democratic republic of Congo. During the five-year conflict that ended in 2003, more
than five million people were killed, and millions more left homeless.
Missinga (ph) was separated from his family during the war and, to this day, doesn't know if they survived.
He said he was mistreated when he lost matches. His coach says the experience made him aggressive.
"In Congo, they always had to win or they were punished in a cage," he says.
He came to Rio in 2013 to compete in the world judo championship and he stayed and requested asylum, a decision he doesn't regret, although he
faces unexpected challenges.
"I thought I'd make a better life here and forget what was going on in my village," he says. "But here, shots are fired every day."
We visit Missinga (ph) in the working class neighborhood where he now lives with his Brazilian wife and toddler son.
(on camera): This is where he gets the bus every day to go to training, three different buses, two and a half hours. He doesn't get home
until around 11:30 at night.
(voice-over): He shows us the hair salon where he slept on the floor where he first arrived, until he met Fabiana (ph). She says the Olympics
are about much more than competing for a medal.
"He needs this, because it could help him find his siblings," she says. "He hasn't seen them since he was a kid."
Missinga (ph) says he wants to bring them to his new home, to Brazil.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DARLINGTON: So, this is a pretty tense moment right now here, Kristie. I'd like to first talk to Yolande. You told me that this whole -
- this opportunity is making your smile for the first time. You lost your family in Congo. How are you feeling today? (SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
She says she is calm, waiting for the news, hopes she on the list, but trying to face this with tranquility and calm.
Now let's ask Popoli. Again, this is an opportunity for you, possibly to find your family. How are you feeling? (SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
Popoli actually says very nervous, until he finds out definitely whether or not his name is on that list. I think they're both going to be
a little tense here. We hope to find out soon so that we can, if all goes well actually be turning this into a celebration.
We'll be back with you, giving you more news, more comments as it comes through. thanks, Kristie.
[08:05:06] LU STOUT: Shasta, they may be nervous, but they're not showing it, these two incredible athletes. You definitely get a sense of
anticipation as we await the big announcement who was going to be on this team. We'll soon hear who is on this Olympic team comprised of entirely
refugees.
And Shasta, I want to get your thoughts just on the historic significance of this moment and
the impact this will have on raising awareness for refugees, for displaced people around the world?
DARLINGTON: that's right. and we've heard from both of these athletes that for them, it's really much less about winning a medal, it's
about raising the profile of refugees across the world. It's about showing that you can follow your dreams, you can achieve something, that conflict
and strife doesn't have to be the end.
And this is what they want to show.
I also think in both of their cases, for Yolande and Papole, they were separated from their families in very violent ways. In Yolande's (ph)
case, she was out playing in the street, her family at home when the bombs started dropping. She doesn't know who survived. And the same is true for
Papole. They think if they can get their face on the TV -- they were young when they happened -- maybe someone in their family could recognize them,
maybe they could be reunited with their families.
So, this is, of course, about sport. It is about judo, but for them it's just about so much more,
Kristie.
LU STOUT: Yeah, absolutely. So much more. Shasta Darlington there, thank you.
Now, CNN's David McKenzie is is standing by for us at a training camp for refugee athletes in Kenya. And David, what is the mood there as we're
awaiting this announcement from the IOC on a team of refugees being given a chance to compete at the Olympic games?
DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kristie, the mood is tense. There are alot of these athletes waiting, finding out
whether they will be going to Rio. It's quite extraordinary. These athletes, I spoke to many of them, they are some of the best refugee
athletes around. They came for this training center completely raw, raw talents.
And, Kristie, what the talent scouts of this refugee team did is go to these large refugee Takouma (ph), Dadaab (ph), these large refugee camps in
Kenya and they asked people, you know, who can run? Who wants to try out for the Olympics? And there were people who played football, others who
had run in junior school, some who didn't do any sports at all and this is a collection of these extraordinary athletes that we spent a few days with
who say that their dream is not just to go to the Olympics, but also to show that refugees, and I'm quoting them, are real people. They have at
aspirations, they have talents, they have dreams, they can show the world that they need to be taken like real people and remove some of teh stigma
that surrounds refugees around the world at this time -- Kristie.
LU STOUT: Now, a short list of about 43 athletes has been compiled, and we're waiting to find out who's on the finalist, on the final team.
But on that short list, how many of those athletes are there at this training camp in Nairobi?
MCKENZIE: Well, no one knows. But I have to say that this is the largest group of athletes,
Kristie, that has been compiled, has been put together to train. They've been training for eight months with one of Kenya's top coaches here.
The foundation here has been working with these athletes, taking raw talent and pushing it
towards Olympic qualifying level.
Now, when they came here, the times were often pretty slow for the events -- the 400, the 800, the mile. But in fact, over the months they've
seen dramatic improvement and it proves that, you know, taking that raw talent, no matter where it's from, even from the most difficult of
circumstances, can mean these can be competitors.
But it's also just about these athletes showing that they can compete on the world stage. Many of them fled the war in South Sudan. I was
speaking to some of these athletes saying their family members were left behind. Some of them can't even find their father and mother. And they
were taken from these refugee camps on the fringes of Kenya, brought here and to an elite area for training athletes, and molded into possibly what
could be the, you know, world beaters.
They don't know who's going to make it, but they hope that at least a few of them here will make it on their team, and they say they'll cheer
whoever makes it in the next few minutes. And I have to say, it's pretty excited -- but they're pretty excited but it's
very tense right now -- Kristie.
LU STOUT: Yeah, I can sense that in the room at this moment.
We know that a number of athletes have expressed reservations about competing in Rio because of Zika, because of other issues. I mean, is it
safe to say, I mean, just given what these athletes who are behind you, what they've experienced, what they've had to escape --
open conflict, war, that they have no reservations at all about the chance to compete in the Olympic games?
MCKENZIE: No reservations at all, Kristie.
And, look, let me tell you a personal story. Poa (ph), one of the runners here, he explained how as a 9-year-old he had to escape on foot
when they attacked his village in South Sudan. He fled with his relatives, his father and mother stayed behind. He couldn't find them for many years,
and then went on a trek all the way to a refugee camp.
That is the kind of personal history these athletes have been dealing with. We were with him and his friends that he's made over the last few
months training on the track, doing (inaudible), which I have to say is of the hardest running training you can do -- sprinting, then running, then
sprinting, then running. Put it in perspective, Kristie, you think about his personal history of war and suffering.
Training he says is easy. And the chance of going to Rio is like a dream come true for all of these athletes, but to a person they've said no
matter who from this rooms makes it on to this team, they will be cheering those individuals on, because it's not just about the individuals, Kristie,
it's about the concept, the idea behind this, that is shouldn't just be the 206 nation states that are competing in the Rio Olympics, they say the
millions of refugees around the world should also have a chance to stand up on that podium and show that they are like anyone else in talent, that's
what matters here -- Kristie?
[08:11:14] LU STOUT: Yeah. These are athletes who have been dreaming and training hard for a chance to compete. Many thanks indeed for that.
David McKenzie joining us live from that refugee training center in Nairobi.
Now, in Rio de Janeiro this hour, we have our senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh. And Nick, you are also awaiting this IOC
conference to hear from the IOC president Thomas Bach, to make the announcement about this team comprised of refugees and also address another
top concerns in regards to the Rio games. What are you waiting for?
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Certainly, I think among the top questions to be answered is Zika. The epidemic, which began
late last year, moved into the beginnings of this year and is now much, I think, more of a concern amongst people as we head towards the actual time
of the games, amongst people who might be coming here as tourists and amongst athletes themselves.
Now, back when Zika first became an issue in sort of the global media spotlight in around about
January or February or so we heard from top American athletes like the female U.S. goalkeeper for soccer, Hop Solo, she expressed her reservations
about coming. We've heard more and more recently from the Spanish-born NBA basketball Pau Gasol, his concerns about coming here, too.
Other athletes saying they might not come at all themselves. It's added to that sense of worry potentially. This is a country which frankly
for which 2016 would have been a difficult year regardless, but they are trying to host the first Olympic games for South American in the history of
the Olympic games during this particularly difficult time, a time political crisis where we're dealing with an interim
president, Michel Temer here, constant eruptions in his own freshly appointed cabinet where it appears that almost every week a new secret
recording emerges in which somebody is doing something they're certainly is not supposed to be doing, most recently the anti-transparency
minister, it appears, allegedly suggesting to somebody else how they might get around some sense of perhaps the transparency he should have been
espousing himself.
So, it's that sense of political crisis that hangs over the Olympics themselves, and added to that as well, is an economy here which has been
struggling for quite some time and the city Rio itself where we've seen ourselves the last-minute rush to prepare basic parts of
infrastructure. In fact, from where I'm standing here, the beaches of Ipanema, which move on down to the beaches of Copacabana very much where a
lot of the tourists will be hoping they can spend their leisure time in hotels, well that's supposed to be reachable to the Olympic games from a
new extension of an underground line, a line four extension, it's called.
Now, we saw ourselves just yesterday how that isn't completed yet. The secretary for transport in charge was very clear that it will be ready
four days before the games actually begin. It's a tight timetable and it adds to that broad sense you often get before major games like this of a
sense of sort of last-minute rush and panic to get everything ready. But I have to tell you, you know, here there's an extra sense of worry because of
the chaos, frankly, the country is already going through -- Kristie.
LU STOUT: All right, Nick Paton Walsh reporting live from Rio, thank you.
Now, that Olympic committee press conference is getting under way now. Let's listen in.
(INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE PRESS CONFERENCE)
[08:19:54] LU STOUT: OK. And that was IOC President Thomas Bach. He was speaking live from Luzanne, Switzerland airing the promotional video
there.
He just announced, it was a historic announcement, the athletes who will make up the first-ever Olympic team comprised of refugees. These
include refugees, displaced individuals from Syria, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo and elsewhere.
He even named athletes who are currently living in and training in refugee camps.
Now earlier, we were speaking to our Shasta Darlington, she was joining us live from Rio de Janeiro.
She had two refugee athletes by her side and she joins us once again. And Shasta, again that historic announcement from the IOC naming the
members of the first team of refugees to compete at the games. And give us the reaction of the two athletes who are standing next to you.
DARLINGTON: Kristie, let me first tell you, they are behind closed doors. They're preparing for the announcement. They don't want to know
yet, because they want to make it in a public announcement. Who I do have here is their coach, Geraldo Bernades. He's a former Olympic judo
wrestler himself. And I can tell you, he is extreme he proud.
(SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
How are you feeling?
He says he's extremely proud that he looks on Yolande and Papoli as his adopted children. He's set up this nonprofit to train children from
underprivileged backgrounds, and then he had the luck, really, the fortune, of meeting Papole and Yolande about about a year and a half ago and
training them just for this moment.
And he said, they actually work alongside children often. And for him they are like adopted
children.
So this is a great moment Geraldo, for Papole, for Yolande, who are going to be on this refugee team, and who have really come so far.
It's been a long and violent road for them that started in the Democratic Republic of Congo
where they were separated from their families by the war, and in Yolande's case, the bombs started dropping while she was playing out on the street.
And her mother was preparing dinner.
For Papole, he was also sent to the capital while bombs dropped on his village. He doesn't know if any of this family survived. So, this isn't
just about trying to win a medal for them, this is really about seeing if they can reconnect with their families, if all of this will bring them the
publicity they need so that someone from their family can come forward and they could actually be reunited. They'd love to bring their families here
to Brazil.
So, a great moment, again, for Geraldo, who has working with underprivileged children, with
these refugees and for all of the people who are gathering here. Again, they want to surprise Yolande and Papole, so they're keeping them behind
closed doors for a big celebration that will be coming up, Kristie.
LU STOUT: And, Shasta, again, you've met and you've talked to two of these athletes who will be part of this ten-member historic team of refugee
athletes. I mean, this is going to change their lives in so many ways, isn't it?
DARLINGTON: absolutely.
You know, they've gotten a lot of help from Geraldo and his nonprofit organization, from the
IOC, from brazil itself. But this is a game-changer. This means that refugees are really being given a new place in the Olympics. Their plight,
therefore, is being put on the global stage so people can understand what they're going through, but also so that they can see sport as something
reformative, something that can help people turn around their lives. And this is what Geraldo does every day with underprivileged children and now,
of course, with refugees.
It really shows that there is a way despite on the conflict, the violence, the war that many of these people have suffered, there is a way
to turn around your life and that sport can often be a central part of that.
And as I was saying, again, if it could help them in any way find their families that would be the biggest gift of all, Kristie.
LU STOUT: Yeah, and this is also a rare bright spot in the run-up to the Olympic games in Rio,
isn't it? I mean, these are the games you've been reporting on so many concerns about crime, about political instability, economic recession, Zika
and now we have this incredible story?
DARLINGTON: Absolutely, Kristie, and it's a pleasure to be reporting on it, I have to say.
There has been so, so many challenges. I don't know that any Olympics game before has faced this many challenges. I mean, just starting from the
economic recession, no other city has been in the middle of a recession gearing up to the Olympics. So, to be able to report on such a positive
story, something so uplifting, something that really has the potential to change people's lives and show how
unique these games will be, not only because of the location, the first South American games, the unique opportunities that Rio itself offers, the
Brazilian people are so warm and welcoming.
And you're seeing that not only in the Olympic Games, but the way that they are welcoming people, like Yolande, like Papole who have been embraced
by their fellow judo wrestlers. They actually trained with the Brazilian Olympic judo team by the coaches who are donating their time, who are
welcoming them into their nonprofit organization to share this space and share the resources. It's a great story to be reporting on.
And I think it highlights some of the fantastic things about Brazil and about Rio we will see during these Olympic games, Kristie.
[08:25:24] LU STOUT: And these athletes, they've been dreaming for this moment and they've been training hard for it as well.
I mean, you've reported on, you followed very closely, the male Congolese judo athlete who sought refuge in Brazil what, three years ago?
What has this day been like? How hard has he been training to achieve this?
DARLINGTON: He's got a pretty tough day. He trains every day. He lives about 2.5 hours away by bus. He has to come here on three different
buses. So, again, he trains every day. He taking Portuguese classes, he does physical training.
And it's very important for his trainers and the institute that's helping him out that he also furthers his education. Yolande and Papole
arrived in Brazil with a pretty basic education, They want to get them up to speed, they want to get them up to high school level, they want them to
learne Portuguese, they want them to have other opportunities. So, they view this as part of a bigger opportunity.
But it's interesting. We came, we came here today with Papole and his wife and his toddler son. His family had never even been to his training
center, it's so far away, it's so hard to get to. There was a shoot-out last night right next door here. So, it wasn't even sure if they would be
able to come.
Rio is a challenging city. Papole himself thought he'd left the difficulties of war and the conflict behind when he left Congo, and yet
while he's happy with the change he's made, he says there are shoot-outs in his neighborhood almost every day.
So, he's facing unique challenges in Brazil that he perhaps never imagined, Kristie.
LU STOUT: Yeah, it's an incredibly uplifting story. And we thank you for your reporting. Shasta Darlington reporting live for us from Rio.
Many thanks, indeed.
And once again, for the first time in Olympic history, a team of refugees, 10 incredible athletes, will have the chance to compete in the
Summer Games in Rio.
You're watching News Stream. We'll be back right after this short break.
(COMMERCIAL)
LU STOUT: Welcome back.
Now in the last 15 minutes or so the International Olympic Committee announced the roster of the first-ever team comprised entirely of refugees.
The 10 athletes were selected from a short list of 43 sportsmen and women and the team will compete in Rio this summer and will be known as the team
of refugee Olympic athletes.
Now, the announcement made by the Olympic committee. It marks a first for the games. And the team of athletes they hail from various countries
including South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Syria.
Now, in France, we are closely monitoring the flooding situation there. Floodwaters have forced some 20,000 people out of their homes, most
of them south of Paris.
Now, the French president has declared a state of natural disaster. We know at least one person was killed: a 74-year-old man who was swept
away while riding his horse.
Now, the river Seine is continuing to swell, and the Louvre Museum isn't taking any changes. It is packing up precious works of art from its
basement and moving them to higher ground.
The Musee d'Orsay has also been evacuating artwork.
Now, CNN senior international correspondent Jim Bitterman is live for us in Paris. He joins us now.
And Jim, the floodwaters continue to rise there, especially in the French capital. Tell us about the precautions being taken right now.
JIM BITTERMANN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, there's several precautions being taken all over the city, but just to add to what
you're saying about evacuations. There are now the first evacuations in Paris, it's actually just people being driven out of their apartments,
basement apartments in the 16th (inaudible) in Paris. There was the first flooding of apartments here in Paris.
Of course, like you say, there are 20,000 people have been evacuated up river from here, where the rains have been going on now for several
days.
The kind of preparations? You can see behind me a little bit the houseboats along the Seine, people live in those boats back there. They
are being tied and secured ashore because the current is running quite strongly against them, and there's also a lot of debris in
the river, so a lot of boat owners are out here making sure they're boats are safe. The other kind og things were happening, they were putting up
barricades around transformers around town, because some power transformers are in danger of flooding and the electric utility company is worried about
that.
Just to give you an idea of how the water has come up in the last hour or two, it has been coming up at the rate of about -- an inch -- a little
more than an inch every hour. And we're expecting now the peak, the crest to be at about 6.5 meters above normal, the normal level of the river here,
that's about 21 feet above the level of the river.
But that's nothing compared with the flood that they all talk about, which is a flood here of 1910. That flood is marked on the wall here --
19th -- and that's the level of that.
So, that was really a disastrous flood for Paris. We're still about 6 feet away from that, about 2 meter away from that flood of 1910.
A little earlier I talked to one of the owners of these boats back here, a longtime resident of Paris, and asked him about what he thought of
what was going on.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BITTERMANN: You' been along the Seine for what, now, about 20 years?
MATT ROSENBLUM, JOURNALIST: 30, I guess.
BITTERMANN: And have you seen it this bad before?
ROSENBLUM: You know, I actually haven't. I mean -- and what people forget now is, this happens in winter, I mean, when the snows melt and
there's a lot of rain and stuff. I mean, this is June. I mean, one night we're sitting on the deck, you know, just having wine and it's perfectly
normal expecting the little ducks to float by in the morning, you know, calmly. And the next morning we wake up, it's like Noah's Ark.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BITTERMANN: That's exactly what it is here -- Noah's Ark all over the place. And a lot of people inconvenienced by it, but also a lot of people
damaged by it.
The fact is the damages are expected to run into the millions if not billions of dollars of damage from the flooding, especially up river from
here where it's been very bad indeed, Kristie.
LU STOUT: All right. CNN's Jim Bitterman reporting on the rising floodwaters there in Paris. Jim, thank you and take care.
Now, back to our top story this hour, the IOC's first refugee team has been unveiled and CNN's David McKenzie is at a training camp for refugee
athletes in Kenya.
And David, at the top of the hour we spoke to you. You described just a sense of nervous anticipation there, and I have got to ask did any of the
athletes there make the team?
MCKENZIE: Yes, at least four of the athletes here made the team. You can see behind me, they are gathering together, celebrating. One man,
young man, Pua (ph), I spoke to, I spoke about earlier, broke down and cried. It's been an extraordinary scene here.
You know, many of these athletes came from different groups, and particularly South Sudan, they have traditionally been enemies. They
talked so much how just this training camp has brought them together in a real sense of that athletics can bring people together
and show that refugees can compete with the world's best.
I'm going to walk now to speak to Rose, who is one of the athletes in the 800 meters who is going to be at the Rio Olympics.
Rose, how do you feel that you've made this team?
ROSE, OLYMPIC RUNNER: Well, I feel very glad, because I've been selected as one of the (inaudible) to participate in the Olympics and this
is the first team I've ever participated in.
MCKENZIE: what does it mean for you that refugees are getting to be part of the Olympics spirit, the Olympic celebration in Rio?
ROSE: Yeah, well, as a refugee, maybe that one also can give us talent, because they've big talents and this the first time for the
refugees to participate in Rio.
MCKENZIE: For you, personally, you've gone through so much. What does this mean to you and to your family?
ROSE: Well, maybe better something like a goal or if I participate and become -- bring a goot position, I will help my family as well and
also my fellow refugees.
MCKENZIE: Because you came from war in South Sudan, now you're heading to Brazil to the Olympics. How does that feel that you've achieved
so much?
ROSE: Well, I feel very glad, because that (inaudible) maybe we come together and promote peace also, and (inaudible) my people to be like
ambassador, and with that can bring peace all over the world and to my fellow refugees as well.
MCKENZIE: Thank you so much, Rose, and good luck to you.
You know, Kristie, all of these athletes are saying a similar thing, that they want to explain that athletics can bring peace, that they can get
together and really show the world that they can compete on the world stage, even though they don't have a flag of their own, a nation of their
own, they can be part of this historic refugee team -- Kristie.
LU STOUT: Absolutely.
It's just so wonderful to hear from that young female athlete. I mean, she is such a symbol of hope and perseverance, you know, definitely
just so inspiring.
How do all of the athletes who are there at the training center, including those not given the
opportunity to compete this year, how do all of them feel now that there will be a team representing them, representing refugees in Rio?
MCKENZIE: Well, it certainly is something that really is showing that refugees, as I said, can compete. and it's not just these athletes
thinking individually that they have achieved something, but they really have -- to a person I have spoken to them, they say they've sensed that
this is something bigger, it's about giving refugees a voice from around the world, whether they be from Syria, Iraq, South Sudan, Somalia, all of
them are given a voice through this initiative to get a team to the Olympics and to compete.
And it's not a token team. I've seen these guys, and woman running, they are real competitors, and they want to go there and do well. And they
say they should deserve to go there. But they do say it's about preaching about something bigger.
But there is a lot of intolerance around the world for refugees and refugee populations. They say this might have a small step in kind of
pushing that envelope and getting people to understand that refugees are like just anyone else with dreams and aspirations and this is one where
they can show that.
LU STOUT: Yeah. And thank you for pointing that out. These are legitimate athletes who have trained hard for this as well as delivering a
message of hope to the entire world.
David McKenzie reporting live for us from Nairobi. Thank you.
Now, let's go back to Rio de Janeiro. Our senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh
is there. He's been standing by listening to that press conference earlier.
And, Nick, again, we now have this Olympic team comprised entirely of refugees. We know this is historic, we know this is an Olympic first. But
what are your thoughts about the significance of that announcement?
WALSH: Well, there's sort of something wonderful about being (inaudible), about the beautiful beaches behind me and the places from
which so many of these people will be competing in that refugee Olympic team have come from. But it represents really I think a timeof
unprecedented global refugees. Perhaps some argue that this isn't the most violent time mankind has known. In fact, some historians point out
it's actually compared to be OK.
But it's the sheer volume of people on the move because of the number of conflicts around the world, and what that's doing in the more porous
borders that the world has seen.
Now, I'll give you some figures from the United Nations just to let you know really how large this crisis is. At this point, there's just
short of 60 million people globally forced from their homes. Now, that is 42.5 thousand people a day who get pushed out of the place where they would
normally live. That's kind of a staggering figure simply to behold.
And some of the conflicts where there are most of the refugees from are not ones we necessarily hear about every single day.
Now, 53 percent of the world's refugees actually come from just three countries at this stage -- Somalia, which we don't hear that often about,
Afghanistan as well, a lengthy war there, decades, in fact, causing so many on the move. In fact, peeking internally inside the country, but also
causing many people to seek homes outside of Afghanistan; and of course Syria, too, over five years of conflict there,
causing -- fomenting refugee crisis is now stretching across Europe as well.
But these numbers amount to a total of 20 million people who are considered by the UN to be refugees. And I think that is the reason why we
see this recognition on such a global scale in the area of sport for people to try and understand more globally exactly what this means for the
movement of populations around the world.
How in Europe people are beginning to have to recognize the sheer volume of migrants who
may well there be to stay for a very long period of time what that's doing to Europe's own politics, too.
Where I'm from, Lebanon itself, where I normally am based, 1.15 million people officially recognized to be refugees there, but that country
transformed by about a third of the people living there now, roughly, a third to a quarter, actually being not originally from Lebanon themselves.
Turkey as well, 1.59 million refugees living there as well, mostly from Syria, too.
So the Middle East transformed by this flow of individuals. Africa, also seeing enormous migration too. Asia, also hit by it as well. And I
think it's that sense perhaps of a world realizing that populations will be on the move fleeing conflict for years, which makes a team like this borne
of the aspirations of people who themselves have had ambitions to try to find a
better life elsewhere, recognizing that ambition from sport itself has made it such an essential and welcome novelty for the Olympic games for this
year in Rio -- Kristie.
[08:41:09] LU STOUT: You know, these ten refugee athletes, they are indeed a symbol ofjhope and they will help fix the world's attention on the
magnitude of the refugee crisis, a crisis that you've reported on extensively.
So all eyes are going to be on the Rio games to watch the first refugee team compete as well as all of the other talented sportsmen and
women from around the world.
Nick, the games are just two months away. You're there in Rio. When you look at the city and look at the venues, is Brazil ready to host the
Olympic Games?
WALSH: I think psychologically it's very ready and willing. I think if you look at the logistics here they do have a lot of challenges.
I was saying earlier on, one of the key ways of getting people from these beaches where they're
supposed to be staying in hotels as tourists to the games themselves to actually watch the events themselves is an extension of a subway line that
isn't ready now.
We saw ourselves, the preparations, they're being done quickly. They say they're in the testing
stage, but they also admit the official opening is four days before the games actually begin, that's an adjustment that they thought they were
going to have it ready earlier.
So, that's one of a number of concerns people are having. The Olympic park itself, well, there
is still building going under way there in one of the Olympic actual venues, and some final preparations fixed there too.
The bigger fear, I think, is what the sense of chaos that Brazil is currently experiencing will do to the desire of people to perhaps chose to
spend their holiday here in Rio. It's a beautiful city, no doubt about that, but it's experiencing economic problems, which itself generate a rise
in crime.
And of course Zika. You can't simply deny that. Athletes talking about it openly now. Are they going to put their health potentially at
risk by coming leer to compete? Most saying yes, but some experiencing, in a confusion or frustration what that does to their ability
to focus on the need to compete in the games themselves and more and we're finding out about this disease, how fast it spreads
what it does to people every single day. That's the big question mark I think which will continue to grow in size as we edge towards the games
themselves, Kristie.
LU STOUT: Nick Paton Walsh live from Rio. Thank you.
And once again, 10 refugee athletes have been named as part of the first Olympic refugee team. They are a symbol of hope, a symbol of
perseverance and a reminder of the refugee crisis that is still unfolding.
And that is News Stream. I'm Kristie Lu Stout.
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