| Traffickers pose as UN staff amid fighting in Libya. Refugees and other sources have told UNHCR that traffickers and smugglers are impersonating UN staff , including UNHCR, at various locations in Libya, including at points where refugees and migrants are disembarked after being intercepted at sea. Refugees said they had been sold on to traffickers who subjected them to abuse and torture. UNHCR also reported “unspeakable atrocities” being committed against refugees and asylum-seekers in the streets of Tripoli amidst heavy clashes in the Libyan capital. UNHCR is recommending that some of those who have escaped detention centres at risk of being hit by rockets be directed to a new “Gathering and Departure Facility” while they await evacuation to other countries. Médecins Sans Frontières noted on Friday that thousands of refugees and migrants remain trapped inside Tripoli detention centres cut off by the fighting from regular food, water and medical care. | | |
| Syrians flee Idlib offensive. Thousands of families have begun fleeing north towards the Turkish border as airstrikes and rockets hit rebel-held areas of southern Idlib and northern Hama over the weekend. The attacks came just one day after the failure of a Russian-Iranian-Turkish summit to agree on a ceasefire. The Times reports that at least 22 people have been killed and several hospitals damaged near the towns of Kafr Zita and Latamneh in northern Hama. So far, the aerial strikes have not hit a major city. Ankara has insisted that it will not open its borders and that it lacks the capacity to host a new wave of refugees. | | |
| Funding cuts hit refugee aid programmes in East Africa. In a statement today, the Norwegian Refugee Council warns that UN humanitarian appeals for Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania are critically underfunded this year, forcing a sharp reduction in aid programmes. The statement notes that “conditions are deteriorating in many refugee camps, with less food, clean water and other vital services available for refugees”. Funding across the three countries has dropped by an average of 64 per cent compared to last year’s levels. These three countries together host over 2 million refugees from some of the world’s most consistently underfunded humanitarian crises, including South Sudan, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Somalia. | | |
| Syrian doctors find refuge, hurdles and delays in Germany. The New York Times reports that Germany is facing a severe shortfall of skilled workers, particularly medical professionals, and yet Syrian doctors who have found refuge there say the system for becoming accredited is time-consuming and complicated . They face stringent language and license exams before they can practise, a process that can take years. At the West Coast Clinic in Heide, special programmes have been developed to support new foreign staff members, including language classes tailored to the terms they will need to know. | | |
| US refugee resettlement agencies close offices and lay off staff. The Atlantic reports on how a steep decline in refugee arrivals to the United States under the current administration is impacting the nine non-profit organizations tasked with implementing resettlement programmes . The agencies planned their programmes based a cap for refugee resettlement for fiscal year 2018 that was set at 45,000. With less than a month before the close of the fiscal year though, only around 20,000 refugees have been admitted for resettlement. With the administration expected to maintain or further lower the cap in the coming fiscal year, resettlement agencies are having to lay off staff or close offices. | | |
| Iraq’s Yazidis fear returning home. The BBC’s Lyse Doucet writes for The Guardian about the Yazidi women and children she met recently in northern Iraq, many of whom were enslaved for years by ISIS. Most remain in displacement camps , unable or unwilling to return to their communities while disputes between the local Kurdish administration and the central government in Baghdad have affected the delivery of aid. The UN and aid agencies are helping some Yazidis to trace family members lost in camps or orphanages, or sold to families, but, reports Doucet, it’s a sensitive and complex business. | | |
| Some 500 refugee and local girls in Amman, Jordan, have a safe place to play sports and interact with each other thanks to Reclaim Childhood, a non-profit programme, which is one of four regional finalists in this year’s UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award. Many of the women who run Reclaim Childhood’s courses are themselves refugees. | | |
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