| Please note that this will the final issue of The Refugee Brief this year. We will be back in your in-box on 2 January. | US to send asylum-seekers back to Mexico to wait out requests. The Department of Homeland Security announced new measures on Thursday requiring people seeking asylum at the southern border to wait in Mexico for a court ruling on their cases. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said the government was acting under emergency provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act and that the policy would be introduced at select locations in the coming days before expanding across the entire southern border. Mexican officials said the asylum-seekers would be provided with work visas and humanitarian assistance while they wait and would be free to live anywhere in Mexico. Current wait times for asylum hearings can be as long as three years. In a brief statement responding to the announcement, UNHCR said it was studying the implications for affected individuals in need of international protection. “Any person forced to flee violence or persecution must be able to access safe territory and humane, efficient asylum procedures without obstruction,” notes the statement. | | |
| UN report details “unimaginable horrors” faced by refugees and migrants in Libya. From unlawful killings, arbitrary detention and torture to gang rape, slavery and human trafficking, a report released on Thursday by the UN political mission in Libya (UNSMIL) and the UN human rights office (OHCHR) details a litany of abuses committed against refugees and migrants in Libya. UN monitors visited a number of detention centres, where thousands of refugees and migrants are being held, and gathered 1,300 first-hand accounts of abuse by state officials, armed groups, smugglers and traffickers. UNHCR has advised against returns of refugees and migrants to Libya and continues to appeal for an end systematic and indefinite detention , as well as for countries to come forward with more resettlement places to evacuate vulnerable refugees from Libya. | | |
| Spanish rescuers find 13 dead at sea. Spain’s maritime rescue service has the found the bodies of at least 13 people in two separate incidents. Twelve of the dead were found on a small boat off the country’s southern coast. Twenty-nine men and four women were still alive onboard, but one of the men later died in a hospital in Almería. Another 12 people remain missing . The discovery came at the end of a two-day search for the boat and its 55 passengers. The service said it was also looking for three more boats in the Alboran Sea, two of them carrying more than 55 people each. Over 55,000 refugees and migrants have reached Spain by sea this year, while at least 744 have died in the attempt. | | |
| A young Rohingya woman’s journey to the impossible. Reuters tells the story of two Rohingya sisters – one who has achieved the rare feat of being admitted to university in Bangladesh while the other, pushed into an early marriage and pregnancy, remains in the world’s largest refugee camp, a few hours to the south. The sisters grew up in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, where they were the only two girls in their village ever to finish high school. Back then, the sisters made a pact that someday they would go to university together, but a violent military crackdown against the Rohingya that started in August 2017 put those dreams on hold for the past year. During that time, Formin, the younger sister, was trained as a community health worker by UNHCR, Medical Teams International and Food for the Hungry. | | |
| Death toll from Mediterranean’s deadliest shipwreck higher than thought. AP reports on the work of two forensic investigators who have spent the last three years tracing the identities of the refugees and migrants killed when an overloaded fishing boat sank off the coast of Libya on 18 April, 2015. With the vessel thought to have been carrying 800 people, only 28 of whom survived, it was already the Mediterranean’s deadliest shipwreck in living memory. Investigators now believe that the boat was carrying nearly 1,100 passengers . Back in April 2015, then-Prime Minister Matteo Renzi committed Italy to identifying all of those on board. Three years later, investigators are nearing their first formal identification. | | |
| Sixty-day church service keeps hope alive for asylum-seeker family in the Netherlands. The Guardian reports on how pastors and volunteers at Bethel Church in The Hague are using a medieval Dutch law to prevent a family of asylum-seekers from Armenia being deported. The family has been sheltering at the church for the past two months while a rotating roster of preachers and visitors lead a non-stop religious service . As long as the service continues, the law states that immigration authorities cannot enter the church. The Tamrazyan family, who have been fighting to stay in the Netherlands since arriving in 2009, turned to the church in late October when their asylum application had reached the end of the line and their deportation appeared imminent. | | |
| Master baker Björn Wiese’s three bakeries in Germany’s Brandenburg state employ 60 people. Ten of them are refugees and asylum-seekers, among whom are several trainees like Mohamad, who is learning the basics of bread-making and improving his German as he serves customers. “When you offer people prospects, you get so much commitment and appreciation in return,” says Wiese. | | |
Worldwide, 92 cities have signed up to UNHCR’s Cities#WithRefugees campaign to promote inclusive host communities.
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