| Proposed legislation in Hungary would severely restrict support to asylum-seekers. A draft law submitted to parliament on Tuesday would, if passed, significantly limit the abilities of NGOs and individuals to support asylum-seekers and refugees, potentially depriving them of vital aid and services, including food, healthcare, legal assistance, housing and education. A separate bill proposing changes to Hungary’s constitution would place additional limits on eligibility for asylum . The BBC reports that Hungary’s parliament, where Prime Minister Victor Orban’s Fidesz party has a two-thirds majority, is set to debate the bill ahead of a vote expected to take place next week. The bill was first introduced to parliament in February. In a statement on Tuesday, UNHCR urged the government to respect the fundamental human right to seek asylum and withdraw the bill, warning that without the support of NGOs, many refugees and asylum-seekers would suffer serious hardship. The statement notes that since January, Hungary has effectively closed its borders to almost all asylum-seekers. Last year, the country granted refugee status to just 1,216 people. | | |
| “Huge unmet needs” in Syria’s eastern Ghouta. Syrian authorities report that more than 10,000 people have returned to the Damascus suburb over the past two weeks, following its recapture in April. Another 200,000 people are believed to have remained there throughout the years of siege and violence. On Tuesday, in a briefing to the UN Security Council, the UN’s aid chief, Mark Lowcock, said there was a critical need for greater humanitarian access to the area. Since mid-March, only one aid convoy has been authorized to enter the former enclave. During the visit to Saqba and Kafr Batna earlier this month, “it was clear there are huge unmet needs, and extensive destruction of civilian infrastructure,” said Lowcock. He added that only six aid convoys this year had reached areas of northern Homs, Douma and southern Damascus that are home to 2 million Syrians in desperate need. | | |
| Developing cyclone threatens Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh. Al Jazeera reports that an area of low pressure in the Bay of Bengal was already bringing large amounts of rain to the western part of Myanmar on Monday. Heavy and prolonged rain is expected to follow in its wake as the monsoon season picks up across Bangladesh and Myanmar. Refugees living in shelters in vast, hilly settlements in southeast Bangladesh are vulnerable to landslides and flooding during the coming months. | | |
| Paris police evacuate city’s largest encampment. Police began moving some 1,500 migrants and asylum-seekers living in a makeshift camp next to a canal in northeast Paris on Wednesday morning. The inhabitants, mainly from Africa, were taken by bus to temporary accommodation centres while bulldozers flattened the tent city known as “Millénaire”. The area and others like it have been at the heart of a debate between France’s interior minister and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo. The mayor and aid groups have pressed for those removed from the camps to be given shelter. | | |
| Cameroon’s anglophone crisis simmers. The Guardian reports from the frontline of Cameroon’s conflict between the French-speaking government in Yaoundé and the Anglophone pro-independence movement in the country’s northwest. Over 20,000 Cameroonians have fled into Nigeria and many more have been internally displaced. People in a village called Belo told the Guardian that following fighting between armed groups and security forces, civilians had come under attack . “They burned houses, raped women and executed people at random,” said one woman. | | |
| More refugees finding jobs in Germany. The number of refugees with paying jobs increased by 60 per cent last year, according to new figures from the German Employment Agency. Handelsblatt reports that the rise has been largely driven by the service sector, especially the hotel and restaurant industry. Many companies also hope to recruit young refugees to their apprenticeship programmes. The number of refugees starting apprenticeships reportedly more than doubled last year, but many business leaders are calling on the government to step up support for such training programmes and to provide greater clarity about the legal status of asylum-seekers who take part in them. | | |
| “Before the conflict in Syria I was a normal person,” says Zuhair, who was seriously injured by an airstrike that hit his shop. He was evacuated to Tripoli, Lebanon for treatment for his fractured spine, but then “sat at home” for 18 months, unsure how to resume life in a wheelchair. The International Rescue Committee introduced him to Ayman, a local phone repair shop owner who also uses a wheelchair. He agreed to take Zuhair on as an apprentice while the IRC paid for his transport. “When you work, you forget you’re disabled,” says Ayman. | | |
On average, only two asylum-seekers a day are allowed to enter Hungary through two “transit zones” at its border with Serbia.
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