| Aid convoy reaches Syrians displaced from Afrin. A 14-truck convoy operated by the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Syrian Red Crescent delivered 25 metric tons of aid to thousands of displaced families in Tel Rifaat south-east of Afrin on Tuesday. Some 100,000 people have fled the Turkish offensive on Afrin city in recent days but an estimated 100,000 remain in Afrin district where aid agencies are unable to reach them. In a statement on Tuesday, UNICEF noted that the city’s water supply had been cut off since 6 March while UNICEF-supported water trucks had been unable to enter the city since 15 March. Meanwhile, in the besieged enclave of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus, 15 children and two women were reportedly killed when an air strike hit the school basement where they were sheltering. | | |
| Myanmar fortifies Bangladesh border with new fence. A new chain-link fence, reinforced with barbed wire, now stretches along most of Myanmar’s border with Bangladesh. The Wall Street Journal reports that Myanmar’s military has fortified the border in recent weeks with military posts, bunkers and landmines in addition to the fence. Rohingya refugees living in a “no-man’s land” near the border told the WSJ that it is now impossible to get back into the country they left behind. The Myanmar government has said that it is building new settlements in Rakhine State for Rohingya returnees, but last week, Amnesty International reported that Myanmar’s military is building security bases on bulldozed land where Rohingya villages once stood. At the launch of a US$951 million UN appeal to support nearly 900,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh on Friday, UNHCR head Filippo Grandi listed a number of preconditions to any repatriations, including reconstruction of their destroyed villages and recognition of their right to citizenship in Myanmar. | | |
| Cameroonians going hungry in Nigeria. The number of Anglophone Cameroonians fleeing into Nigeria has doubled since January. Over 20,000 refugees are now registered in the Cross River area where their situation is increasingly desperate , according to UNHCR. A recent assessment by aid groups found that 95 per cent of the new arrivals had no more than three days of food and no proper shelter or safe source of drinking water. UNHCR has appealed for $18 million to assist the refugees but so far has received no funding. | | |
| Rohingya children trafficked for sex. A BBC investigation into the networks behind the trade in Rohingya women and girls in Cox’s Bazar has found that they are lured away from the camps by promises of jobs and a better life. Two 14-year-old girls described how they accepted offers of jobs or help in desperation only to be raped and forced into sex work. | | |
| Shortage of services for Congolese rape survivors in Uganda. Many of the women and girls arriving in Uganda from the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Ituri Province experienced sexual violence before they fled. IRIN reports that as Ugandan officials and aid agencies struggle to respond to the influx, there’s a shortage of health and psychosocial services for rape survivors. The response to a cholera outbreak has diverted already scarce funding and local clinics are few in number and poorly resourced. UNHCR is trying to address the need by deploying additional staff trained in psychosocial care and by strengthening medical screening at landing sites on the shores of Lake Albert. | | |
| Asylum elusive for Venezuelans fleeing to Colombia. The Miami Herald profiles some of the Venezuelans who have fled to Colombia to escape political persecution and now find themselves struggling to survive in the capital, Bogota. Mery Muñoz and her mother arrived last September but were told that without valid passports they can’t work while they wait up to two years for their asylum claims to be processed. Muñoz now spends her days on crowded buses singing for spare change. In guidance released earlier this month, UNHCR encouraged countries to ensure Venezuelans have access to refugee procedures and the right to work. | | |
| After visiting some of the camps sheltering Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, Brandon Stanton, founder of the popular photo blog, Humans of New York, decided to start a project to build bamboo homes for some of the most vulnerable refugees that could withstand the upcoming monsoon season. He featured a Rohingya refugee on the Humans of New York blog every day to create awareness for his GoFundMe page with the aim of raising $1.8 million to build 3,000 sturdy houses. More than $1 million was donated in four days, a GoFundMe record, and the page has now surpassed its target with $2 million in donations. | | |
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