UNHCR calls for “go-and-see” visits for Rohingya refugees. In a statement on Sunday, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said Rohingya refugees should be allowed to go and see conditions in Rakhine State for themselves before making a decision about whether to return. “Refugee returns should only take place at their freely expressed wish based on relevant and reliable knowledge of the conditions within the country of origin and the area of return,” he said. Earlier on Sunday, Myanmar officials said the country was ready to start receiving a first group of 2,000 Rohingya refugees under an agreement struck with Bangladesh last month. But with repatriations due to begin on Thursday, the logistics of the operation remain unclear and a number of those on the list of returnees have said they will refuse to go back. UNHCR spokesperson Caroline Gluck told the Guardian that the agency would not provide transport or any other assistance to facilitate returns because it did not believe conditions in Rakhine state were safe or that the rights of the Rohingya could be assured. | | |
| US moves to restrict asylum at Mexico border. President Donald Trump signed a proclamation on Friday that blocks individuals who cross the US-Mexico border irregularly from seeking asylum. The ban will last for 90 days or until the US reaches a “safe third country” agreement with Mexico that would allow it to return asylum-seekers arriving from there. The proclamation puts into effect a regulation announced on Thursday that makes individuals who fail to cross the US border at an official port of entry ineligible for asylum. The regulation was quickly challenged in federal court by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups who argue that it violates current US law which allows individuals fleeing persecution to apply for asylum however they entered the country. In a statement on Friday, UNHCR said it expects all countries, including the United States, to ensure people in need of refugee protection can receive it “promptly and without obstruction ”. The agency pointed out that “long-standing insufficient reception capacity” at official border posts were resulting in significant delays and forcing many vulnerable asylum-seekers to cross the border irregularly out of desperation. US officials have indicated that there are no plans to expand capacity at official border points to deal with a potential increase in asylum applicants. | | |
| Ten missing after boat sinks in Aegean. Turkey’s state-run news agency reports that the country’s coast guard has launched a search-and-rescue mission to find 10 people reported missing after their boat sank in the Aegean Sea off the coast of Izmir on Monday. Authorities reportedly launched the rescue operation after two of the boat’s passengers managed to swim to shore. In another incident on Saturday, a 4-year-old Iraqi boy was killed and 27 others injured when a smuggler’s van carrying people from Iraq, Somalia and Bangladesh collided with a truck in northern Greece. | | |
| Fighting in Yemen’s Al-Hudaydah reaches residential streets. Street battles broke out in residential areas of Yemen’s main port city of Al-Hudaydah over the weekend, forcing medical staff to flee the city’s largest hospital and further raising fears that the escalation of hostilities could cut off the country’s main entry point for food imports and relief supplies. Residents said they saw the bodies of seven civilians killed in clashes in southern suburbs. On Friday, UNHCR noted that nearly half a million people have been forced to flee Al-Hudaydah Governorate since June while an unknown number are trapped in the city by fighting which has cut off exit routes. | | |
| Refugees in Malawi face food ration cuts. More than 35,000 refugees and asylum-seekers in Malawi will stop receiving food assistance from January unless international donors urgently step up to fill a US$4.2 million funding gap , UNHCR and the World Food Programme warned on Friday. With limited access to land for farming or other means to make a living, refugees in Malawi are largely dependant on outside help. Malawi has taken in thousands of refugees fleeing political instability and social unrest in the Great Lakes and Horn of Africa regions over two decades, including more than 3,000 new arrivals this year. | | |
| Refugee journeys told through illustration. An exhibition that opened this weekend in London tells refugees’ stories through the work of 12 artists, two of whom are refugees themselves. The Guardian features some of their work as well as the story behind German artist Olivier Kugler’s illustration of three Syrian refugees inside a makeshift shelter in Calais. Kugler met up with one of the men in his illustration at the opening of the exhibition at London’s House of Illustration. | | |
| Former Togolese refugee Germain Dosseh is a US army veteran, a police officer and a father raising his family in Phoenix, Arizona. He says he joined the military “as a way of saying thank you” to the country that had given him the opportunity to start a new life. | | |
Since the outbreak of conflict in Yemen in March 2015, a total of 17,640 civilian casualties have been recorded, including 6,872 deaths.
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