| Escalating conflict and obstacles to aid delivery deepen suffering in Yemen. The country’s already dire humanitarian crisis has been compounded in recent weeks by escalating conflict along the west coast, increasing restrictions on aid agencies and a decline in commercial food imports . The UN’s emergency relief coordinator Mark Lowcock warned in a statement on Thursday that if conditions do not improve, a further 10 million Yemenis will join the 8.4 million already identified as severely food insecure by the end of the year. Lowcock said that humanitarian staff were being “detained and intimidated” and their visas delayed and denied by authorities in northern areas. A 21 May update by the UN notes that humanitarian partners are “navigating shifting frontlines” to reach people in need on the west coast and that hundreds of families had fled fighting in Al Hudaydah in recent days. A total of 130,000 people have been displaced from western coastal governorates since December 2017, adding to some 3 million displaced from their homes since 2015. | | |
| Vigil to be held for Manus Island refugee. Refugees and asylum-seekers on Manus Island will hold a vigil this evening for Salim, a Rohingya refugee who died on Tuesday after jumping out of a moving bus. A father of three, Salim had been on Manus Island for five years, under Australia’s “offshore processing” policy. He suffered from epilepsy and mental illness, but according to Behrouz Boochani, a fellow refugee on Manus and a journalist, he was unable to get the treatment he needed on Manus. The Guardian reports that Australian police have launched an investigation into Salim’s death and determined it was suicide, the third in less than a year among refugees on Manus. In a statement in response to Salim’s death earlier this week, UNHCR’s regional representative in Canberra commented that “comprehensive, intensive support for refugees and asylum-seekers remains desperately needed in both Papua New Guinea and Nauru” and renewed calls on the Australian government to take immediate action “to avert further harm and tragedy”. | | |
| Rights group accuses Nigerian military of abusing displaced women and girls. In a report released yesterday, Amnesty International alleges that the Nigerian military sexually exploited women and girls displaced by Boko Haram violence, in exchange for food. In a statement, Nigeria’s military dismissed the allegations as malicious and false. Earlier complaints about sexual abuse and exploitation in camps for displaced people in November 2016 had prompted Nigerian police to promise to investigate, but Amnesty said it was unclear if the investigations had been carried out as no reports had been made public. | | |
| War, displacement reshuffle Syria’s demographic map. AFP reports on how seven years of war and displacement have redrawn Syria’s demographic map , deepening divisions between the country’s ethnic, religious and political communities that will be hard to erase. Negotiated withdrawals have seen hundreds of thousands of Sunni rebels and their families relocated from areas captured by the government to opposition-held areas in the north. Meanwhile, Alawite and Christian minorities have been pushed out of opposition-held territories because of their perceived loyalty to President Bashar al-Assad. | | |
| Rohingya refugees find warm welcome in Indonesia’s Aceh province. Rohingya refugees arriving by boat in Indonesia’s Aceh province, on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra, have been met with generous donations and fellowship by the local Indonesian community, reports The Guardian. At least 1,740 Rohingya have landed in Aceh in the past 10 years, including 79 who arrived several weeks ago. The refugees are staying in a temporary camp in the coastal town of Bireuen, where young Acehnese volunteers have been helping them. | | |
| Scotland plans to give refugees right to vote. Refugees and asylum-seekers in Scotland would be given the right to vote in local and Scottish parliamentary elections under new proposals being put forward by the Scottish government to extend voting rights to all legal residents of the country. Bringing the proposal into force will require a two-thirds majority in the Scottish Parliament. “In my view, people who have been welcomed here as refugees and people who are going through the process of seeking asylum should be included,” parliamentary business minister Joe FitzPatrick told MSPs. | | |
| Syrian gardeners at Domiz refugee camp in northern Iraq are the inspiration behind the Lemon Tree Trust Garden, on display at the Chelsea Flower Show in London this week. Garden designer Tom Massey created the garden after visiting Domiz camp, where UK-based charity Lemon Tree Trust has been helping Syrian refugees to plant gardens in the small plots of land surrounding their shelters. While Massey’s garden generated a buzz at Chelsea, the charity ran flower competitions at five camps in northern Iraq. Budding gardeners at the camps will receive further encouragement from a donation of 2,000 seed packets by the Royal Horticultural Society this week. | | |
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