| Displaced Congolese give accounts of barbaric violence. A UNHCR team has heard harrowing reports of violence from people displaced by months of conflict between the Hema and Lendu ethnic groups in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Ituri region. Some of the estimated 350,000 people who fled the violence are now returning home, but many are finding their villages and houses reduced to ashes. They told UNHCR staff that armed groups had attacked civilians with guns, arrows and machetes, that entire villages had been razed and that farms and shops had been looted and damaged beyond repair. In a briefing in Geneva on Friday, UNHCR spokesperson Charlie Yaxley said that conditions were desperate both for returnees and for those still at displacement sites, with many places lacking clean water or access to health care. IRIN reports from neighbouring North Kivu province, where civilians have also suffered atrocities at the hands of armed groups and are now displaced with little assistance. Bad roads, insecurity and severe underfunding have hampered the humanitarian response to the crisis. | | |
| Syrian forces retake Daraa city. Syrian state media said government forces raised the national flag on Thursday over rebel-controlled areas of Daraa city after a surrender deal was agreed. The offensive to reclaim Daraa province, which started last month, reportedly forced some 320,000 civilians to flee the area. The UN estimates that 234,500 remain displaced, with around 160,000 people sheltering in the Golan Heights area near the border with Israel, where living conditions are described as “ dire”. Although Israeli authorities have delivered some aid, the UN and other aid agencies lack access to the area. Tens of thousands of people are reported to be living in the open, exposed to high temperatures and desert winds and without adequate food, drinking water or medical care. In the past week, at least 15 people, 12 of them children, have died from dehydration or diseases caused by contaminated water, according to the World Health Organisation, which is calling for access to the area. | | |
| Refugees and migrants disembark Italian coast guard ship. The ship, carrying 67 people transferred from an oil rig supply tug that rescued them, was given permission to enter the Sicilian port of Trapani on Thursday, according to media reports, but was initially blocked from disembarking its passengers. Interior Minister Matteo Salvini had called for an investigation into the circumstances surrounding their rescue on Sunday to be carried out first. After waiting for several hours, the group were eventually allowed to disembark late on Thursday. | | |
| UN releases emergency funding to assist displaced Ethiopians. The UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) released US$15 million on Thursday to urgently scale up assistance to close to one million people displaced by inter-communal violence in Ethiopia’s West Guji and Gedeo regions. UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the displaced needed “urgent help” and that the CERF funding would enable aid groups to quickly scale up assistance to support the government-led response. Historical tensions between communities in the region escalated in April this year, leading to the large-scale displacement, loss of life and widespread damage to properties. | | |
| Venezuelan children suffer from hunger, illness and exploitation in Colombia. AP reports that Venezuelan parents arriving in Colombia with nothing are struggling to care for their children . Police in the border town of Cucuta regularly turn children over to the nation’s child welfare agency, which places many of them in foster homes. With more than 500 Venezuelan children taken into custody since the start of 2017, according to government documents obtained by AP, the agency is over-stretched. Many other children are living in precarious conditions without enough food. Church and social workers say that in the most desperate cases, parents have abandoned their children. | | |
| Yemen’s man-made famine. Journalist Jane Ferguson gained rare access to Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen last month by disguising herself as a Yemeni woman in local dress. Writing for the New Yorker about what she saw on the malnutrition ward of a hospital in Sana’a, the capital, she asks if intentional starvation is the future of war . Widespread hunger in Yemen has not been caused by famine but by periodic blockades on shipments of food and other goods to rebel-held areas and by aerial attacks that have destroyed infrastructure and businesses, devastating the economy. When food is available, endemic unemployment and high food prices make it unaffordable for many families. It’s feared that the military offensive launched on the key port of Hudaydah last month will worsen the situation. | | |
| The Denver Post reports on an all-female scouting troop in Colorado that’s introducing teenage refugee girls to new experiences and adventures. The troop is one of only three all-girl Venturing groups in the state and the first in the country to welcome refugee girls. | | |
Nearly two million people have been displaced by conflict inside the Democratic Republic of the Congo since January 2017.
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