| Malta allows rescue ship to dock. The Aquarius, an NGO rescue ship, has received permission to dock in Malta after being stranded at sea since Friday with 141 rescued asylum-seekers and migrants. A statement released by the government of Malta on Tuesday afternoon said Malta would serve as a “logistical base” while the passengers are distributed between France, Germany, Luxembourg, Portugal and Spain. UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi welcomed the end to the deadlock but stressed the need to avoid such situations in the future. “It is wrong, dangerous and immoral to keep rescue ships wandering the Mediterranean while governments compete on who can take the least responsibility,” he said in a statement today. UNHCR appealed to shipmasters to continue responding to distress calls and carrying out rescues at sea. | | |
| More than 100 civilians killed in northwest Syria. The UN’s regional humanitarian coordinator for Syria, Panos Moumtzis, has said he is appalled by the reported deaths of at least 116 civilians in Idlib and Aleppo governorates last weekend. Many of the deaths were caused by shelling and airstrikes, he said, while an explosion at a weapons and ammunition depot in northern Idlib on Sunday claimed 67 lives. In a statement, Moumtzis condemned the attacks and expressed alarm that the incidents are part of an escalation of the conflict in the area, which is home to millions of people, many of them displaced by fighting in other parts of the country. Voice of America reports on the prospect of a government offensive to retake Idlib and related concerns over its potential to cause a humanitarian catastrophe. | | |
| African asylum-seekers feel impact of Israel’s “deposit law”. Fifteen months after the implementation of a law that withholds 20 per cent of their salary each month and returns it only if they leave the country, African asylum-seekers and migrants in Israel have been driven further into poverty , according to this AP report. While the law is being challenged in the country’s Supreme Court, advocacy groups and asylum seekers say that its impacts include more migrants switching to black market jobs, more women entering prostitution and more requests for food assistance. An Interior Ministry spokesperson said the savings are meant to provide "a proper starting point for the beginning of the migrants' new lives outside of Israel." | | |
| Refugees subjected to violence by police after crossing into Croatia. The Guardian reports on allegations by refugees and migrants that the Croatian police force is subjecting people caught crossing into the country to violence and theft . Men interviewed by the Guardian near the Bosnian border said they had been beaten with sticks, taunted or attacked with dogs before being pushed back to Bosnia. A spokesperson for the Croatian interior ministry said the country’s police force always respected the “fundamental rights and dignity of migrants”. A separate report from the Guardian looks at the charity and support many refugees and migrants travelling through Bosnia’s border region have found among a local population with memories of its own hardships. | | |
| South Sudanese children get help to trace lost families. Some 17,600 unaccompanied minors have crossed into Uganda since the outbreak of war in South Sudan five years ago. Aid workers say it will take years to reunite so many splintered families. The New York Times reports on the work of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Uganda to trace the parents of unaccompanied children. The bulk of that work is done by volunteer “tracers” who look for missing family members in Uganda’s refugee camps. Until their parents have been found, the children live with foster families in the camps. | | |
| Conflict and displacement has left millions of people in Yemen in need of assistance. Ayman, a Syrian restaurant owner in Sana'a, gives away free falafel sandwiches to some of those going hungry. | | |
On the Central Mediterranean route, the death rate has tripled compared to the same period last year, and now stands at one death for every 17 people who attempt to cross.
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