| UN chief tells governments to do more to protect civilians caught in conflict. Addressing a UN Security Council meeting on Tuesday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged the international community to take steps to shield civilians from war . “The most effective way to protect civilians is to prevent conflicts and to end them,” he told the Council before presenting a report outlining three key ways governments can take action. The report calls on governments to develop national policy frameworks to protect civilians caught up in conflict, to support UN efforts to engage with armed groups on codes of conduct, and to ensure accountability for serious violations and end what Guterres called “the climate of impunity”. The Director-General of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Yves Daccord, described the gap between words and action on upholding international humanitarian law as “dramatic”. He told the Council that the ICRC had recorded more than 1,200 attacks on medical facilities and staff in two years. | | |
| Algeria urged to stop collective expulsions of African migrants. The UN human rights office (OHCHR) has told the Algerian government that rounding up and expelling thousands of migrants is a violation of international human rights law . Earlier this month, an OHCHR team interviewed 25 sub-Saharan Africans who had been expelled and heard that while Nigeriens were transferred by bus to Agadez, others were crammed into trucks and abandoned near the Nigerien border to walk for hours in the desert heat. OHCHR spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said people were not individually assessed and were not allowed to pick up their passports or belongings before being expelled. A senior official at Algeria’s interior ministry told Reuters the country is facing a surge of migration from Mali and Niger and that it needs help from the international community to address it. | | |
| France orders migrants and asylum-seekers to evacuate their tents in Paris. France’s interior minister has ordered the evacuation of some 2,300 people living in tent camps along canals in eastern and north-eastern Paris. AP reports that in a statement on Wednesday, Interior Minister Gérard Collomb said he had ordered the police to work out an evacuation operation that would “reconcile” the demands of France’s new immigration law and appeals by aid groups to find shelter for the migrants and asylum-seekers, two of whom have drowned in canals this month. | | |
| Zambia recovers bodies of drowned Congolese refugees. The refugees lost their lives after their boat capsized in Lake Mwerudu on Friday. They were reportedly among a group of some 30 Congolese who had left Kenani refugee transit centre in northern Zambia in a bid to return home. Thousands of refugees fleeing violence in south-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo have crossed into Zambia since last August. By December, UNHCR reported that Kenani transit centre was filled to maximum capacity. The Zambian government is appealing for more funds to respond. | | |
| New report reveals benefits of hiring refugees. The Fiscal Policy Institute conducted in-depth interviews with refugees, their employers and refugee resettlement agency staff in four areas of the United States. They found that refugees tend to stay with the same employer for longer than other hires , with the turnover for refugees between a fifth and two-thirds lower than for other employees. The study, published by the Tent Foundation on Tuesday, also found that when companies worked to address challenges that arose from hiring refugees, such as language barriers, they were often able to recruit other refugees from the same community. | | |
| Focus on Niger as ‘southern border of EU’ has unintended consequences. This long read by Daniel Howden and Giacomo Zandonini for Refugees Deeply looks at how EU policies have impacted those working in northern Niger’s informal migration economy , as well as the refugees and migrants they transport. The EU has channelled large amounts of development aid into strengthening Niger’s border with Libya and funding alternative livelihoods for former smugglers. But Alessandra Morelli, UNHCR’s country representative in Niger, points out that the country is dealing with multiple emergencies in addition to the situation at the Libya border. Howden and Zandonini report that smugglers are still operating from Agadez, but are using longer, more dangerous routes and sometimes abandon their passengers in the desert to avoid arrest. | | |
| At Nakivale refugee camp in Uganda, refugees are being treated as customers rather than beneficiaries and asked to rate camp services with the swipe of a smiley face on a tablet. They’re then asked for their ideas about how to make services better. These ideas are often simple and inexpensive to implement, such as changing the hours of the local health clinic or providing shade at a water point. The initiative, called Kuja Kuja, was created by the design firm Ideo together with the American Refugee Committee. It is now being expanded to camps in Rwanda, Somalia and Sudan. | | |
In 2017, more than 26,000 civilians were killed or injured in six countries affected by conflict.
| | |
| |
No comments:
Post a Comment