The Welsh Refugee Council is an independent charity to the

Refugee Council The Refugee Council is a UK-based organisation which works with refugees and asylum seekers. The organisation provides support and advice to refugees and asylum seekers, as well as support for other refugee and asylum seeker organisations. The ...

and

Scottish Refugee Council The Scottish Refugee Council is a registered charity that provides advice and services to asylum seekers and refugees. The objective of the organisation is ‘building a better future with refugees in Scotland’. The charity was formed in Edin ...

, and works to help

asylum seeker An asylum seeker is a person who leaves their country of residence, enters another country, and makes in that other country a formal application for the right of asylum according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 14. A per ...

s and

refugee A refugee, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is a person "forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as ...

s in

Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...

, United Kingdom. It was founded in 1990 and established Wales' first asylum support services in

Cardiff Cardiff (; ) is the capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of Wales. Cardiff had a population of in and forms a Principal areas of Wales, principal area officially known as the City and County of Ca ...

in 1992. The Welsh Refugee Council received national attention in 2025, when

Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a businessman. He is known for his leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, X (formerly Twitter), and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk has been considered the wealthiest person in th ...

shared a post on X (formerly Twitter) falsely attributing a video of schoolgirls to the charity and claiming the organisation was using children to convince refugees to come to Wales.

History

The Welsh Refugee Council was founded on 11 February 1990, the day anti-apartheid activist

Nelson Mandela Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela ( , ; born Rolihlahla Mandela; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist and politician who served as the first president of South Africa f ...

was released from prison in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. In 1992, the Home Office gave the council a £30,000 grant to set up the first asylum support services in Wales, based in Cardiff. In January 2011, the UK Border Agency announced funding cuts for the Welsh Refugee Council, along with other refugee agencies across the country. It was estimated that the "One Stop Service", which provides advice to asylum seekers and refugees in Wales, would face cuts of 62%. In response to the planned cutbacks, the Welsh Refugee Council issued a joint statement with its counterparts in England and Scotland, which read in part: "Savage cuts to the refugee charity sector will force people who have already fled torture, conflict, and persecution in their own countries to suffer even further while seeking safety in the UK." In January 2025, charity workers were subjected to online harassment and death threats after businessman

shared a post that made false claims about the Welsh Refugee Council on X (formerly Twitter). The post featured a video of schoolgirls "explaining why Wales was a welcoming country for refugees". However, the caption falsely claimed that it was an effort by the Welsh Refugee Council to " se12-year-old girls... to entice migrant men to come to Wales". Conservative

member of the Senedd A member of the Senedd (MS; plural: ''MSs''; ; , plural: ) is a representative elected to the Senedd (Welsh Parliament; ). There are sixty members, with forty members chosen to represent individual Senedd constituency, Senedd constituencies, a ...

Andrew RT Davies Andrew Robert Tudor Davies CBE (born 1968) is a Welsh politician who has served as Member of the Senedd for the South Wales Central region since 2007. He has previously served as Leader of the Welsh Conservative Senedd Group from 2011 to 2 ...

subsequently denounced the Welsh Refugee Council and accused his Labour colleagues in the Welsh government of using children in their "propaganda". The Welsh Refugee Council referred Davies' comments to the Senedd's Standards Commissioner and the South Wales Police began an investigation into an allegation of malicious communications.

References

{{Authority control Refugee aid organisations in the United Kingdom Charities based in Wales Human rights organisations based in the United Kingdom Organizations established in 1990 1990 establishments in Wales Refugee aid organizations in Europe