| UN Security Council urges Myanmar to investigate violence against Rohingya. In a statement issued on Wednesday the Security Council called on Myanmar's government to hold perpetrators of the violence against the Rohingya to account. Members of the Security Council who visited Bangladesh and Myanmar last week “were struck by the scale of the humanitarian crisis and remain gravely concerned by the current situation”, noted the statement . The council urged Myanmar to “step up its efforts to create conditions conducive to safe, voluntary and dignified return of Rohingya refugees” and to address the root causes of the crisis, including the issue of the Rohingya’s citizenship. The statement also called on Myanmar to immediately grant UN and other aid agencies unhindered access to Rakhine State and to finalize an agreement with UNHCR and the UN Development Programme on aid access and voluntary repatriations “in the coming days”. | | |
| More deadly encounters with elephants at Bangladesh camps. A 12-year-old Rohingya refugee boy was reportedly trampled to death by an elephant last week after he fell asleep guarding paddy fields in a village in Cox’s Bazar. Three days later a girl was critically injured when elephants moved through Nayapara refugee camp. At least a dozen similar incidents involving elephants have occurred over the last six months in and around the sprawling Kutupalong camp that is home to 700,000 Rohingya refugees. The camp sits on a migratory route used by elephants for centuries. A programme started in January by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and UNHCR to train volunteer elephant response teams to warn residents when elephants enter the camp may now need to be expanded as new land is cleared for refugee families at risk from landslides and flooding. The Guardian reports that the new land is even closer to where most elephant populations live. | | |
| UNHCR calls on Austria to reconsider new asylum legislation. The agency has expressed concern about several proposed new regulations, including the seizure of up to €840 cash and mobile phones belonging to asylum-seekers upon their arrival. UNHCR called the measures “coercive” and “highly intrusive”. “People who have lost everything through war or who have been at the mercy of smugglers should not be subjected to such treatment,” said Christoph Pinter, head of UNHCR in Austria. The bill, which was approved by Austria’s Cabinet last month but still needs to be passed by parliament, would also extend how long refugees must wait before applying for citizenship from six years to 10. UNHCR said the change could hinder integration and social cohesion. | | |
| Canada responds to influx of Nigerian asylum-seekers crossing US border. The Canadian government says its working with US officials in Nigeria to deal with the increasing numbers of Nigerians obtaining visas to legally travel to the US before crossing the border and claiming asylum in Canada . More than 25,000 asylum-seekers were apprehended crossing irregularly into Canada between January 2017 and March of this year. So far this year, most of those crossing the border have been Nigerian citizens, according to Canada’s border agency. Canada’s Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Ahmed Hussen is due to travel to Nigeria this month to meet with Nigerian officials about the issue. | | |
| Germany’s challenge to convince public that integration can help everyone. Writing for the New York Times, author Paul Hockenos argues that German leaders need to change the public narrative about migration from one of fear to one that embraces and builds on the progress the country has already made in integrating refugees and migrants into the labour market. Germany’s efforts to rapidly scale up its language and training courses and to remove bureaucratic obstacles to refugee employment could play a vital role in addressing gaps in the country’s ageing workforce. | | |
| Dispersing refugees around a country hinders integration, European study finds. Government policies that disperse asylum claimants around a host country, usually to areas where refugee housing is cheapest, can have far-reaching negative impacts on refugees’ future employment prospects , according to a new research paper. The researchers found that asylum-seekers who were dispersed had substantially worse employment outcomes than those who were not, even 10 to 15 years later. One of the authors, Francesco Fasani, argues that decisions about where to send refugees should not be based solely on the availability of cheap housing. | | |
| If you’re in Paris, check out La Résidence – the first restaurant in France dedicated to training refugee chefs. Every two to six months, a new trainee will have the opportunity to showcase their talents while improving their business skills. The team behind the Refugee Food Festival launched La Résidence in February with Syrian refugee Nabil Attar as the first chef in residence. | | |
Among refugees who arrived in Germany in 2015, nine per cent had found jobs by 2016, while nearly a third of those who arrived in 2013 were working.
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