| UN chief urges more support for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. UN Secretary-General António Guterres appealed to the international community to substantially increase its financial support to nearly one million Rohingya refugees living in “heart-breaking” conditions in Bangladesh. He made the appeal during a visit to Kutupalong refugee settlement in southeast Bangladesh along with World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim. Guterres told reporters he had met with refugees who told him “terrible stories of massive violence, of killing, rape and torture”. He thanked Bangladesh for keeping its borders open and providing basic support to the refugees. | | |
| Merkel and her interior minister agree to “transit centres” on border. Politico reports that German Chancellor Angela Merkel has agreed to a compromise with her Bavarian coalition partners over refugee policy, potentially ending a weeks-long standoff that had raised tensions within the government. Reports suggest Merkel and her interior minister Horst Seehofer, leader of the Bavarian Christian Social Union, have agreed to set up so-called transit centres along Germany’s southern border to allow for accelerated returns of asylum-seekers to the countries where they first registered in the EU. Seehofer had demanded that Germany block asylum-seekers at the border if they had no papers or had registered in another EU country. However, it remains unclear whether the Social Democrats, the third party that makes up Germany’s coalition government, would support the policy, or whether any EU countries would be willing to be involved in the proposed returns. | | |
| US judge orders release of 1,000 detained asylum-seekers. The Washington Post reports that a federal court on Monday ordered the US government to immediately release or grant hearings to more than 1,000 asylum-seekers who have been detained for prolonged periods without individualized case reviews. The judge said that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had ignored its own policy stating that asylum applicants who establish a “credible fear” of persecution must be granted a court hearing within seven days or be released. | | |
| Austria takes over EU presidency with a focus on migration. Austria took over the rotating presidency of the European Council on Sunday with the motto “a Europe that protects”. Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said that one of Austria’s goals during its presidency is “to stop the tide of illegal immigration” into Europe. UNHCR released a list of recommendations to Austria on Monday including the need to continue efforts to reform the Dublin Regulation and to establish a predictable and manageable regional disembarkation system for people rescued in the Mediterranean. The agency also urged Austria to ensure that cooperation with countries of origin and transit be focused on expanding protection space rather than shifting responsibility outside the EU. | | |
| Fighting threatens to worsen hunger during South Sudan’s lean season. July marks the peak of South Sudan’s lean season when harvests have been depleted and an estimated 7.1 million people are in desperate need of food distributed by aid groups. A new ceasefire that came into effect on Saturday was violated within hours and continued conflict is likely to make humanitarian access to many areas extremely difficult. IRIN reports that conflict is one of the main drivers of hunger in South Sudan, with millions of people forced to abandon their land and crops. Without lasting peace, aid organizations fear little progress can be made to address one of the world’s worst levels of food security. | | |
| Number of displaced in southern Syria climbs to more than 270,000. The latest update from the UN puts the estimated number of people displaced by fighting in south-west Syria since 17 June at 271,800 . Of those, some 60,000 have fled to areas near the Jordanian border while 164,000 have moved towards camps and villages in Quneitra, close to the Golan Heights area. “Daraa residents are effectively trapped – many of those who are displaced are living in makeshift tents in the searing heat with insufficient food, water or medical care, and with the constant fear of being exposed to attacks at any given point,” said Amnesty International’s Middle East Research Director, Lynn Maalouf. | | |
| In this interview with Alison Flood for the Guardian, poet, activist and UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Emithal Mahmoud describes how a poem about her grandmother, who had just died in Sudan, changed her life. She performed the poem at the 2015 International World Poetry Slam Championship in Washington DC and won the competition. Since then, she has taken part in roundtable discussions at the White House, become an advocate for refugees and led a 30-day walk for peace through Sudan. | | |
A humanitarian appeal launched in March calling for US$951 million to meet the needs of nearly one million Rohingya refugees and the communities hosting them in Bangladesh is only 26 per cent funded.
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