Some 170 people reported missing in two Mediterranean shipwrecks. An Italian naval helicopter rescued three people from a sinking dinghy on Friday who said they had left Libya on Thursday night as part of a group of 120 people. In another incident, 53 people who set off from Morocco are thought to have died after a collision in the Alborán Sea. One survivor was rescued by a passing fishing boat after being stranded at sea for more than 24 hours. UNHCR said in a statement on Saturday that it was appalled by news of the two incidents and called for an immediate end to actions by States aimed at deterring NGOs from conducting search-and-rescue operations. Meanwhile, an NGO vessel, the Sea Watch 3, rescued 47 people , including eight unaccompanied children, off the coast of Libya on Saturday, but has yet to receive permission to enter a safe port. An estimated 100 additional people on board a boat in distress were rescued by a cargo ship on Sunday after 24 hours of sea. | | |
| Refugees and migrants suffer “extreme abuse” in Libyan detention, says HRW. In a report released today, Human Rights Watch documents severe overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, malnutrition, lack of adequate health care and violent abuse by guards in four detention centres in western Libya. The rights group said large numbers of children, including newborns, were being detained “in grossly unsuitable conditions” in three of the four centres. HRW spoke with over 100 detainees in Tripoli, Misrata and Zuwara in July 2018. The report alleges that European Union policies are contributing to “a cycle of extreme abuse” against refugees and migrants in Libya. In particular, it highlights EU and Italian support to the Libyan Coast Guard, which has increased interceptions of refugees and migrants at sea and their subsequent return to detention centres. | | |
| Thailand commits to end detention of child refugees. Thai authorities on Monday signed a Memorandum of Understanding committing to release all refugee and asylum-seeker children from immigration detention centres. The move was welcomed by UNHCR , which urged Thailand to immediately release all the remaining mothers and children still in detention centres. Thailand is not a signatory to the Refugee Convention and has come under fire for holding refugees and asylum-seekers in detention. Last week, head of immigration Surachate Hakparn signalled a shift in refugee policy, saying that refugees would no longer be returned home “involuntarily”. | | |
| Ecuador to tighten controls on Venezuelan migrants and asylum-seekers. Ecuador is setting up new units to check Venezuelans’ legal status and may tighten entry requirements , President Lenin Moreno said on Sunday. The announcement followed news reports that a Venezuelan man had murdered his pregnant Ecuadorian girlfriend on Saturday evening after holding her hostage on a busy street in the northern city of Ibarra. Moreno said the government may create a new “special permit” for Venezuelans to enter the country. Ecuador estimates that some 1.3 million Venezuelans entered the country via Colombia last year, although most continued to Peru. | | | | Rohingya attempting to enter Bangladesh from India stuck at border. Reuters reports that Bangladesh has denied entry to 31 Rohingya trying to enter from India and that they have been stuck in a no-man's land on the border since Friday. The stranded Rohingya, including women and children, had been living in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, according to a Bangladeshi border official. An Indian border officer told reporters on Sunday that the group were being provided with food and clothing. At least 1,300 Rohingya have reportedly crossed into Bangladesh from India since the start of the year. | | |
| Internally displaced people in Nigeria left without aid after attack. Tens of thousands of internally displaced people in the north-eastern town of Rann have been left without aid following last Monday’s attack on the town by Boko Haram militants. At the time of the attack, about 70,000 IDPs were living in Rann. Some 9,000 people have fled across the nearby border with Cameroon where UNHCR has expressed alarm about several thousand of the new arrivals being forcibly returned back to Nigeria. In a statement on Friday, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria, Edward Kallon, said that warehouses containing humanitarian supplies had been looted and destroyed and that the town was inaccessible to aid organizations either by road or by air. | | |
| For the first time ever, a refugee is among the co-chairs helping to shape discussions at this year’s annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, which starts Tuesday in Davos. Meet Mohammed Hassan Mohamud, a Somali refugee living at Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya. | | |
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