| Medical charity told to stop its mental health services on Nauru. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) says the Pacific island nation of Nauru has ordered it to cease its work there. The charity has been providing psychological and psychiatric services to residents, asylum-seekers and refugees living on the island since late 2017 as part of an agreement with Nauru’s health ministry. MSF said it was asked on Friday to stop its activities within 24 hours but was not given a reason. UNHCR and others have highlighted the lack of adequate psychiatric care for refugees detained as part of Australia’s off-shore processing policy on Nauru and Manus Island. The president of the Australian Medical Association recently described the situation for refugee children on Nauru as "a humanitarian emergency requiring urgent intervention". | | |
| Protesters call for release of Italy’s “refugee mayor”. Thousands of people rallied in the small hill-top village of Riace in southern Italy on Saturday to call for the release of Mayor Domenico Lucano , who was put under house arrest last Tuesday for allegedly abetting illegal migration. Lucano has won international acclaim for repopulating his dying village with refugees and helping them to successfully integrate into the community while reigniting the local economy. The state has accused him of facilitating “marriages of convenience” between migrants and locals and of irregularities in the awarding of contracts for rubbish collection. His supporters believe the charges are politically motivated. UNHCR has expressed concern about Lucano’s arrest and for the refugee and migrants who have relied on his support in recent years. | | |
| Council of Europe urges Croatia to probe police abuse allegations. In a letter published on Friday, Commissioner Dunja Mijatovic wrote that she was "worried" by reports about large numbers of collective expulsions of migrants, including potential asylum-seekers, from Croatia to Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Particularly worrisome, she said, were allegations of systematic violence by Croatian law enforcement officials against those people, including pregnant women and children. Croatia’s Ministry of the Interior has rejected the allegations and said there was not enough evidence to justify a criminal investigation. | | |
| India’s Rohingya refugees fear more expulsions. Reuters interviewed Rohingya refugees living in two settlements in India, one in the northern city of Jammu and one in the capital, Delhi, and found communities who feel they are being increasingly vilified . Following India’s return of seven Rohingya men to Myanmar on Thursday, many among the estimated 40,000 Rohingya living in the country fear the government is planning more expulsions. “We are thankful to India for letting us live here. But hatred against us is growing,” one Rohingya man living in Jammu told Reuters. According to UNHCR, some 18,000 Rohingya refugees and asylum-seekers are registered with UNHCR in India and have ID cards that help prevent “arbitrary arrests, detention and deportation”. | | |
| Shelling of camp for displaced in Yemen causes death and injuries. One woman was killed and 12 people were injured, including eight children, when a camp for internally displaced people in Yemen’s Al Hudaydah Governorate was hit by shelling on Friday. The woman was reportedly killed while having lunch with her children. The director of a nearby mobile clinic told The National that everyone living in the camp had fled to an area east of the city. Lise Grande, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, condemned the attack, noting that as many as 17 civilians had been killed or seriously injured in just over a week. “There is no conceivable justification for what is happening,” she said. | | |
| Venezuela’s exodus poses “monumental” humanitarian crisis for the region, says UNHCR chief. Following a visit to the city of Cúcuta near Colombia’s border with Venezuela on Sunday, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said he could better appreciate the magnitude of the situation . He told reporters that his visit “symbolizes the will of the international community to be close to Colombia in this very important effort to respond to a monumental crisis”. Grandi will meet today with Colombia’s President Ivan Duque, who has called for more international assistance to help his country manage the arrival of nearly a million Venezuelans. | | |
| These people were asked what home means to them – and then what they thought it means to refugees. | | |
Fifty-four per cent fewer refugees were resettled last year than in 2016. At the current rate, it will take 18 years to resettle all the refugees who need a solution in third countries.
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