| Three years of war takes heavy toll on Yemen’s children. On the third anniversary of Yemen’s conflict, aid agencies are warning that children’s health, safety and education are at more risk than ever as the country’s humanitarian crisis deepens. More than 5,000 children have been killed or injured by the fighting, but famine and disease pose an even greater threat. UNICEF’s Middle East Director Geert Cappelaere said one Yemeni child was dying every 10 minutes from preventable disease and that, with the rainy season due to start in a few weeks, cholera was likely to make a comeback. He added that months had been wasted negotiating with authorities for permission to begin a cholera vaccination campaign. Cappelaere, who has just returned from a visit to Yemen, also highlighted Yemen’s education crisis, noting that nearly 2 million children are out of school, half a million more than before the conflict. | | |
| Evacuations from Eastern Ghouta gather pace. Over the weekend, some 6,000 rebel fighters and their families boarded buses headed for opposition-held areas of Idlib province in northern Syria as part of evacuation deals with the government. Hundreds more civilians also reportedly left the area on Sunday, carrying children and belongings. Only the town of Douma, the most populous part of Eastern Ghouta, now remains under rebel control. The UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross have refused to facilitate the evacuations which critics say amount to forced displacement amid a crushing offensive that has killed more than 1,500 civilians. Between 56,000 and 70,000 people now staying in shelters for the displaced on the outskirts of Damascus where the World Health Organization has warned that poor sanitation and hygiene conditions could lead to disease outbreaks. | | |
| More displacement, less data as Syrian crisis deepens. Fighting in Syria has displaced around half a million people from their homes in the first months of 2018. Ivana Hajzmanova of the Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre writes that as Syria’s humanitarian and displacement crisis deepens, the data landscape is also deteriorating. Few agencies in government-controlled areas collect displacement data and as the government regains control of much of the country, the data gap is likely to keep widening. “A data ‘black hole’ will seriously hamper any attempt to provide for the needs of the displaced people,” Hajzmanova writes. | | |
| Returning refugees helping to rebuild Somalia.Somalis who have spent decades in exile are returning with skills in engineering, medicine, building and other fields. Younger generations, who grew up in Canada, the UK or the US, see Somalia’s fragile peace as an opportunity to put their education to use and to learn about their culture . The Guardian reports that even those who don’t return are making important contributions to Somalia’s economy with the diaspora funding construction of hospitals and other infrastructure. | | |
| Slavery in Libya “the new normal” for Eritrean refugees. Eritrean journalist and activist, Meron Estefanos, explains how years of exposure to abuses in countries such as Sudan, Egypt and Israel have desensitised Eritreans even to the horrors of slavery in Libya. The threat of being kidnapped and sold has not prevented young Eritreans from continuing to flee indefinite military conscription and human rights abuses in their country. "Democracies do not produce refugees," Estefanos writes. | | |
| Germany’s “refugee detectives”. In this long-read for the Atlantic, Graeme Wood describes how the German government has responded to critics of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s policy of welcoming asylum seekers by strengthening its process for determining asylum claims. The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) has not only stepped up its efforts to make the process quicker and more compassionate, it has also developed new techniques for detecting fraudulent claims. | | |
| The conflicts in Iraq and Syria have destroyed countless archaeological wonders that will need restoring and conserving when the dust finally settles. But conservation efforts are likely to be hampered by a lack of skilled craftspeople. The World Monuments Fund has started a program in Jordan to give refugees and a small number of Jordanians the skills to restore their nations’ heritage. Four months into a conservation stonemasonry training course in Mafraq, just 12 miles from the Syrian border, 35 men and women are already carving arabesques and mouldings. | | |
Since the outbreak of Yemen’s conflict in March 2015, five children have been killed or injured by the violence every day.
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