Feature: Refugee children participate in Athens Olive Wreath Run

As the Olympic movement gears up for the historic Rio Summer Olympics, refugee children running alongside Greek youth and Olympic medalists sent on Wednesday a strong message for peace across the world from the center of Athens.

On the occasion of the Olympic Day celebrated on June 23 each year in order to spread the Olympic ideals and on the occasion of the World Refugee Day marked on June 20 to commemorate the strength, the courage and the resilience of millions of refugees worldwide, the Hellenic Olympic Academy organized an Olive Wreath Run (Kotinodromia in Greek).

Greek hosts called on Athenians, refugees living in accommodation facilities and foreign visitors to "Get Active on Olympic Day With Refugees." This was the main slogan of the event.

The turnout was impressive. Greeks and tourists gave a warm applause to the kids who run holding olive wreaths from the pedestrian street in front of the Acropolis Museum to the courtyard of Zappeion exhibition hall near the Panathenaic stadium where the first modern Olympics were held in 1896.

The olive wreaths (kotinos), the prize for winners in the Olympic Games in Ancient Greece, as symbols of friendship and peace, at the end of the fun run on Wednesday were used to form the Olympic Values Tree at Zappeion.

The tree was made by children with branches in the three colors of the Olympic medals (gold, silver, bronze) and decorated with slogans for excellence, good sportsmanship, hope, love, solidarity and peaceful coexistence.

The event closed with a music and dance show and Greek and refugee children participating in Olympic sports under the guidance of Greek sports legends such as Niki Bakogiannis, the silver medal winner in high jump at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

The unprecedented Olympic Run was organized in collaboration with the UNHCR, the Greek National Olympic Academy and the International Olympic Truce Center among others to highlight the ongoing refugee crisis, the worst international humanitarian crisis after WWII.

"The children carried the messages of friendship, cooperation, solidarity, all the messages which are so symbolic and have such great value in our times," Isidoros Kouvelos, President of the Greek National Olympic Academy told Xinhua.

"The goal was to offer these children the chance to feel good, have some fun, because they have this right to be together and be able to enjoy life. They deserve it," he stressed explaining the reasoning behind the initiative.

"Today is the smile on the faces of the children and their parents' pride that we want to celebrate here in Greece, because we have seen them, you have seen them. And it is important to celebrate both the solidarity expressed by the Greek people, but also the new lives that these people will have either returning one day to their country or otherwise integrating in the societies in Greece and other parts of Europe," UNHCR representative in Greece Philippe Leclerc told Xinhua.

More than 1 million people displaced and persecuted from conflict zones crossed from Turkey into Greece and continued their trip to central and northern European countries since early 2015.

More than 56,000 refugees and migrants have been stranded in Greece since February this year, when the Balkan route to central Europe was sealed, and are accommodated in temporary camps across the country.

All these refugees will be represented in the upcoming Olympics in Brazil this August. It is the first time ever that the Olympic Games will be hosted by a Latin American country.

It will be the first time in the history of the Olympic movement that a delegation of refugees will parade on August 5 during the opening ceremony and compete in following days under the banner of the International Olympic Committee in another strong symbolic gesture in solidarity with the refugees, Leclerc underlined. Enditem