Netherlands ready to take some refugees from NGO ship. The Netherlands announced on Wednesday that it was prepared to take some of the 32 refugees and migrants waiting to disembark the Sea Watch 3 if other European countries did the same. The Sea Watch, a Dutch-flagged NGO vessel, has been stranded in the Mediterranean since rescuing its passengers on 22 December. Malta’s navy said on Wednesday it would allow the Sea Watch 3 and the Sea-Eye, another NGO ship with 17 people on board, to “take shelter” in Maltese waters from deteriorating weather conditions. The crew of the Sea Watch said many of its passengers were suffering from severe sea sickness and that they were especially worried about three children onboard. On Monday, UNHCR appealed to States to urgently offer the two ships a safe place to disembark. | | |
| More than 8,000 displaced by escalating violence in northeast Nigeria. Worsening clashes between armed groups and government forces in the north-eastern Nigerian state of Borno forced more than 8,200 people to flee their homes during the last week of December, according to the International Organization for Migration. Most of the displaced are from Baga where Islamist militants have launched a series of attacks in an effort to take control of the town. The newly displaced have been arriving to three camps where they are reportedly in urgent need of shelter, water and sanitation facilities. | | |
| US agents fire tear gas to deter border crossers. US Border Patrol agents fired tear gas at a group of about 150 migrants attempting to climb over and under a section of border wall in Tijuana on New Year’s Day. AP reports that many in the group were asylum-seekers who had tired of the long wait to have their claims processed. US Customs and Border Protection said the tear gas was used to target rock throwers rather than those trying to cross. Thousands of asylum-seekers are camped out in a concert hall in Tijuana waiting for their turn to apply for asylum in the US. | | |
| Thousands flee clashes in Myanmar’s Rakhine State. The UN said on Wednesday that about 2,500 people have fled fighting between a Buddhist armed group and Myanmar’s security forces in Myanmar’s western Rakhine State over the past month. The Myanmar military last month announced a four-month cessation in fighting with groups representing ethnic minorities in the north and northeast of the country, but Rakhine State was excluded from the pause. The clashes involve the Arakan Army, which claims to represent the Rakhine, the Buddhist ethnic group that makes up the state’s majority. More than 700,000 of Rakhine’s Muslim minority, the Rohingya, fled across the border to Bangaladesh in 2017 following a violent military crackdown. | | |
| Ten humanitarian crises and trends to watch in 2019. IRIN’s pick of humanitarian crises and trends to keep an eye on this year includes displacement linked to climate change, the unresolved power struggle in Syria’s northeast, inter-communal tensions in Ethiopia and the prospects for peace in South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Militancy in Africa and the risk of a fragmenting conflict in Yemen also make the list. | | |
| Former refugee Ilhan Omar to be sworn into US Congress. On Wednesday, Ilhan Omar flew into the same Washington DC airport where she arrived in the United States as a refugee 23 years ago. Today, she will be sworn in as the first Somali-American in Congress and one of the first two Muslim women in Congress. In a recent interview with the New York Times, she spoke about fleeing Somalia’s civil war at the age of 8 and her four years in a refugee camp in Kenya before her family was resettled to the US. Omar will be representing Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District. | | |
| Three years after arriving in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, Burundian refugee Annick Iriwacu has a thriving business selling gas cylinders with her younger brother. She received guidance on how to register and manage her business from Inkomoko – a local business consulting firm that works with UNHCR to train and support refugee entrepreneurs. | | |
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