When the World Burns, We Build a Home: A UN Humanitarian’s Life in Witness

July 2025, FT Chinese Columnist Fanyu Lin

The world has caught fire again. Some wars have just begun. Others have been burning for years.

In the first half of 2025, conflict returned to the Horn of Africa, forcing tens of thousands to flee across borders. Ethiopia faces dual humanitarian pressure: receiving asylum seekers from neighboring countries including Sudan and Eritrea, while also coping with widespread internal displacement caused by ongoing conflicts in Amhara, Tigray, and Oromia. In such turbulence, how do we hold the line for peace? How can humanitarian aid move beyond emergency relief and become a path to reconstruction?

In this installment of the Global Leadership Conversation series, I speak with Andrew Mbogori, one of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR) most seasoned humanitarian officials. He is both a witness to war and an architect of peace.

“The time for Africa to prioritize peace is now,” Andrew emphasizes. “Lasting peace must be non-negotiable. The continent cannot afford more cycles of violence, especially when it is women and children who suffer the most.”

With 35 years of humanitarian experience, he has championed structural reforms to support refugee self-reliance. But the questions he continues to ask are deeply human: Where does dignity belong? Can peace still be imagined? A home without land. A future beyond reach. Can something so broken still bear the name of what we long for most?

Andrew Mbogori and Refugees in School © UNHCR

Where Dignity Begins Again

“Home is where you feel safe, where you can dream, where tomorrow is within sight.”

As UNHCR’s Country Director in Ethiopia, Andrew Mbogori has carried this belief through decades of frontline humanitarian work, helping countless displaced people rebuild the possibility of a life.

He still remembers meeting a boy named Tedros at the Alemewach settlement in northern Ethiopia. The child, from Eritrea, dreamed of becoming a pilot. His eyes were clear and full of conviction. “He’s studying hard,” Andrew says. “He doesn’t ask which side fired first; he wants to know if the sky still holds a place for him.”

Today, Ethiopia is receiving continuous refugee inflows from Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, and Eritrea, while also grappling with over three million internally displaced people. The combination of refugee and IDP crises has pushed the humanitarian system to its limits.

“Ethiopia remains one of Africa’s most important host countries,” Andrew says. “But host communities and border regions are under immense pressure. What’s needed now is a community-based approach, not just focusing on refugees, but on the societies they’re joining.”

He emphasizes the shift from dependency-driven aid to a co-beneficial, sustainable model as the key to easing tensions and fostering hope.

“I spoke with refugees in the west, from Sudan and South Sudan. They told me, ‘Support us so we can support ourselves.’ That was not a plea for more aid, but a call for dignity.”

Today in many parts of Ethiopia, refugees are eligible for residence permits, business licenses, and the right to farm. They are gradually being included in national education and healthcare systems. Behind these changes lies international support, policy reform, and, more deeply, a collective will to rebuild life.

“What we used to call ‘refugee camps’ are now ‘settlements.’ A camp implies the temporary, but for many families, this is already home. You walk in and see bamboo fences, freshly painted walls, and murals of their homelands. They’re restoring meaning to daily life and creating a place for their loved ones.”

Refugees in School © UNHCR

Still, Andrew knows that “there’s no place like home.” A permit cannot erase trauma. A water tap does not heal history. “People are waiting for that day,” he says, “for peace to return, so they can begin their journey home.”

A Journey Without a Map

“I never imagined this would become my life.”

In 1990, Andrew was a 29-year-old economist working for the Kenyan government on a forestry program. One morning, he read a newspaper ad: the UN was seeking volunteers to support Ethiopian refugees in Somalia.

“I didn’t know what I’d be walking into. But something inside said: Go.”

He brought the idea to his father, a former member of the Kenyan Parliament and a cabinet minister. His father paused, then said, “Go for it!” That blessing, Andrew says, changed everything.

That year, Andrew arrived in Mogadishu as a refugee community coordinator. War hadn’t broken out yet. The center was a refuge. People came to take classes, perform, and share their stories, many of them heartbreaking. A few months later, civil war erupted, forcing him to evacuate. But his life had already changed course.

In the years that followed, he was posted to some of the most volatile places on earth. Liberia. Sierra Leone. The Democratic Republic of Congo. Uganda. Sudan. South Sudan. He worked on emergency relief, repatriation, and coordinated humanitarian responses for millions of refugees. Each posting became a new story. Families arrived in pieces, without documents, belongings, or a place to call home.

Refugees in Camp © UNHCR

“I would walk into settlements and see the children. I’m a father myself. I would think that could be my child. What can I do?” He pauses. “It’s dehumanizing.”

What he came to understand is that displacement is not only the loss of shelter. It is the loss of meaning, continuity, identity, and dignity. Humanitarian work, at its core, is the act of rebuilding connection amid the ruins.

Sculpting Peace

“I want to keep building homes,” Andrew says. “Homes where people connect to themselves, their families, their culture, their future.” When home is lost, we must create a space where dignity can live until peace returns. He also wants to sculpt that peace into reality.

Years ago, while studying in the Netherlands, he visited Madurodam, a miniature city that re-creates Dutch life in exquisite detail. “I thought, what if Africa had something like this? Not about war. About peace. About how we live.”

He called it Dunia—Swahili for “world.” A peaceful world. A new chapter for Africa. Not a replica of borders, but a living map of hope.

“One big homeland known as Africa,” he describes, “where people are peaceful. I want to show people that they can live peacefully. My sculptures will be peaceful. There will be no conflict. They are not fighting, they are not quarrelling. That, I believe, is a powerful message. Not just for Africa, but for the world.”

Andrew Mbogori and Refugees © UNHCR

For countless children born in exile, this imagined landscape offers a sense of belonging no passport can grant. In it, they see the memory of their ancestors. They feel the pull of a land they have never walked in but are deeply connected to, not through the lens of suffering, but through the possibility of peace.

“Art allows us to imagine a world politics has yet to achieve,” Andrew says. “When a child walks into that space, I want them to feel what’s possible, not just what’s broken.”

If we still have the will to dream, even in exile, even in ruins, have we not already begun to return home?