| Nearly 2 million Venezuelans have fled country since 2015. “Some 5,000 people are now leaving Venezuela daily – the largest population movement in Latin America’s recent history,” UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi told the organization’s executive committee on Monday. “A non-political and humanitarian approach is essential to help states receiving them in growing numbers,” he added. UNHCR spokesperson William Spindler told AFP that 1.9 million people had left Venezuela since 2015, an increase on a previous count of 1.6 million. Colombia’s president, Ivan Duque, said on Friday that the influx of more than a million Venezuelans into his country was costing about 0.5 per cent of GDP. Duque said Colombia would continue its "open arms" policy but added that the economic and social costs on his country had to be evaluated. | | |
| Bangladesh delays plan to move Rohingya to remote island. AFP reports that the Bangladeshi government has postponed its plans to begin relocating Rohingya refugees to the island of Bhashan Char, amid staunch opposition to the idea among refugees living in settlements near the Myanmar border. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was due to open the new settlement built to house 100,000 refugees on Bhashan Char on 3 October, but a spokesperson for Bangladesh’s armed forces, which has overseen construction work on the island, said the opening ceremony had been delayed. The UN has said that more thorough technical and protection assessments are needed to assess the suitability of the site for the relocation of refugees and that refugees need to be consulted about the plans. | | |
| Surge in suspected cholera cases in Yemen’s Al Hudaydah. Suspected cholera cases have almost tripled in Yemen’s coastal Al Hudaydah region since fighting there escalated in June, according to Save the Children. Health facilities supported by the charity recorded a 170 per cent increase in suspected cases between June and August. Air strikes in July damaged a sanitation facility and water station that supplies Al Hudaydah with most of its water. In addition, over half a million people have been displaced from their homes since June and are now living in host communities with little access to clean water and sanitation. | | |
| German government reaches compromise on immigration reform. Germany’s coalition government agreed on a new immigration law on Tuesday, which Berlin hopes will attract more skilled workers from outside the European Union. The proposed law reportedly “adheres to the principle of separating asylum and labour migration”. Not included in the law is a special dispensation sought by the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which would have allowed rejected asylum-seekers to remain in the country if they had found a job and learned German. The parties said they would define a residence status for well-integrated asylum-seekers who could not be returned home. | | |
| Telecoms giants dial in to refugee markets. This article, published last week as part of a Financial Times special report called Investing in Refugees, looks at how high population density in refugee settlements combined with refugees’ high demand for connectivity is pushing more telecoms companies to view refugees as potential customers. At Nyarugusu refugee camp, near Tanzania’s border with Burundi, a cell tower installed by Vodacom in 2016 is running at full capacity and the average revenue per refugee user is higher than for the rest of Tanzania, proving the business case. Improved connectivity creates the foundation for other services such as online education and mobile payment systems. | | |
| The fourth episode in UNHCR’s podcast series, “Awake at Night”, features an interview with documentary photographer Giles Duley. He talks about how his disillusionment with fashion photography drove him to become a care worker before he realized that he could combine his passion for helping others with his love of photography. Duley lost three limbs when he stepped on a landmine in Afghanistan, but he continues to travel to the world’s war zones to document the lives of those caught up in conflict. | | |
Just 884 refugees and migrants disembarked on Italian shores during the month of September this year, compared to 6,291 during September last year.
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