| By Annie Hylton @hyltonanne | 14 June, 2018
Please note, there will be no newsletter tomorrow due to a UN holiday in Geneva. | | Civilians flee as assault on Hudaydah continues. Fierce fighting in the rebel-held Yemeni city of Hudaydah, a key port for aid supplies, continued for a second day as the UN Security Council prepared to hold emergency talks. Reuters reports that civilians are attempting to flee the city. The main road linking Hudaydah to Sana’a, the capital, had been hit by an airstrike. UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi told Reuters that the escalating violence could lead to a refugee exodus. “The message is go back to the negotiating table as soon as possible,” he said. The UN’s envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, said he was holding negotiations to keep the port open to aid deliveries and was “extremely concerned” about the humanitarian and political impact of the escalation. | | |
| Migrants and refugees stranded on US Navy ship. Days after Italy closed its ports to NGO rescue ship, the Aquarius, the fate of 41 migrants and refugees rescued off the Libyan coast by a US Navy ship is unclear. Sea-Watch, a German-based NGO conducting rescues in the Mediterranean, said yesterday it had received a request by the US Navy ship to take on board the survivors as well as 12 bodies retrieved during the rescue on Tuesday. But as of last night, the NGO said the migrants were “in diplomatic limbo” on the US Navy ship, due to the lack of clarity about where they could disembark. Sea-Watch noted that with the Aquarius still en route to Spain, it’s ship was the only dedicated rescue vessel still patrolling the central Mediterranean. UNHCR chief, Filippo Grandi described the incident involving the Aquarius to Reuters yesterday as “ shameful”. “As a European, I felt shame — shame — that there was a boat — there is a boat — in the Mediterranean, and for several days nobody wanted to take these people,” he said, adding: “It’s very clear that Europe needs to reform its asylum system in a collective manner.” | | |
| More than 2.5 million people smuggled worldwide in 2016, UNODC study found. The first Global Study on Smuggling of Migrants conducted by the United Nations on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) found that at least 2.5 million people were smuggled worldwide in 2016. Smugglers generated an income of US$7 billion. The study found 30 major smuggling routes worldwide and that the demand for such services is especially high among refugees who “for lack of other means, may need to use smugglers to reach a safe destination fleeing their origin countries”. Many of the smuggling flows include unaccompanied or separated children who are vulnerable to abuse. | | |
| More than a million Venezuelans moved to Colombia over 15 months. According to figures released by the Colombian government on Wednesday, 250,000 among the more than a million people who left Venezuela for Colombia were Colombian citizens returning home while over 800,000 were Venezuelans intending to stay. More than half of the Venezuelans who were tracked in a national survey did not have visas, stamped passports or temporary permission to remain and could be subject to deportation, Christian Kruger, the head of the migration agency said. The number of people arriving from Venezuela is expected to continue to grow. | | |
| Authorities in European cities and towns could help solve Europe’s refugee crisis. Local authorities and nation-states in Europe do not always agree on support mechanisms for refugee populations, and different levels of government have been divided over refugee policies in cities such as Paris and Palermo. Frederic Vallier, the secretary-general of the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR), argues that local governments must be supported and empowered to organize the arrival and shelter of refugees and that all spheres of government – local, nation-state and EU – must cooperate. | | |
| Akhter Hossain is a Bangladeshi farmer who lives in Jamtoli village, close to a large Rohingya refugee settlement in southeast Bangladesh. Eight months ago, he opened his farmland to host over 71 Rohingya families who had nowhere else to go. To mark the holy month of Ramadan, Akhter and his family invited his refugee neighbours for an iftar meal. “If he didn’t give us shelter like a brother, we would have died a long time ago. We wouldn’t be able to survive”, his neighbour Mohammad Kasim said.” | | |
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