Saudi woman under UN protection after ending airport hotel standoff. Rahaf al-Qunun, the 18-year-old Saudi national who fled her family at the weekend, left Bangkok airport on Monday night under the protection of UNHCR whose staff began interviewing her today. “It could take several days to process the case and determine next steps,” said UNHCR’s Thailand representative Giuseppe de Vincentiis in a statement. “We are very grateful that the Thai authorities did not send back [Qunun] against her will and are extending protection to her,” he added. The head of Thailand’s immigration police, General Surachate Hakparn, said she had been taken to a safe house while her asylum claim is being processed. | | |
| Stalemate continues over 49 stranded refugees. Politico’s Brussels Playbook reports that behind the closed doors of an EU ambassadors’ meeting on Monday, nine EU countries pledged to take in the 32 refugees and migrants stranded on board the Sea Watch 3 for 18 days as well as 17 others aboard the Sea Eye. But Malta said it would not give permission for the refugees and migrants to disembark unless another 249 people it rescued in the past few weeks formed part of the redistribution effort. Paraskevi Michou, who leads the European Commission's migration department, told MEPs that the 249 additional people “made the calculation bigger”. According to a presentation made in the European Parliament’s civil liberties committee on Monday, the lack of coordinated EU action on asylum is costing tax payers an estimated €49 billion a year. This series of pictures published by Al Jazeera shows the cramped conditions for the 32 people on board the Sea Watch 3. | | |
| Traffickers targeting forcibly displaced populations, finds UN report. A UN report published on Monday shows that reported cases of human trafficking are on the rise, with women and girls making up the majority of victims. The report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) focuses on armed conflict as a driver of vulnerability to trafficking and the targeting of refugees and internally displaced persons by armed and criminal groups. One example given is the phenomenon of girls and young women in refugee camps in the Middle East being “married off” without their consent and subjected to sexual exploitation in neighbouring countries. The study also looks at the trafficking risks faced by migrants and refugees travelling through conflict areas such as Libya. | | |
| Storm “Norma” brings heavy snow and rainfall to refugee camps in Lebanon. Storm “Norma” brought heavy snow and rain to refugee settlements in northern and eastern Lebanon on Monday. An image on social media showed a refugee settlement in Arsal, near the Syrian border, blanketed in snow. Meanwhile, tents belonging to more than 500 people in Semmaqieh refugee settlement in Akkar governorate filled with floodwater. The Lebanese Red Cross transferred 100 Syrian families to other settlements and to nearby schools where UNHCR distributed blankets and mattresses. | | |
| Myanmar to launch “crackdown” on Rakhine rebels. Myanmar said on Monday that its army will “crush” an armed group called the Arakan Army that attacked four police stations in a western border region on Friday, killing 13 policemen and wounding nine others. Fighting between the military and the Arakan Army has already displaced 4,500 people over the past month. According to the UN, they are sheltering in monasteries and other communal spaces in the area. Buthidaung Township, where the attacks on the police stations occurred, was also the site of much of the violence perpetrated by the military against Rohingya residents in 2017. | | |
| Refugee girls struggle to reach potential at Kenya camp. This long read published by Marie Claire looks at how a lack of educational resources and opportunities can make it almost impossible for refugee girls living in camps like Kakuma in Northern Kenya to realize their ambitions . Kakuma’s schools average more than 95 students for each teacher and there aren’t enough textbooks or desks. Despite the lack of resources, a shift in the cultural belief that girls don’t need to be educated, teacher training programmes and a boarding school for secondary-level girls are having an impact on their educational outcomes. | | |
| Today saw the launch of the 2 Billion Kilometres to Safety campaign which invites people to run, walk or cycle to cover a cumulative total of two billion kilometres – the distance collectively covered by people forced to flee every year to reach their first point of safety. Participants can use their fitness apps or the campaign website to log their kilometres and contribute to the global goal. | | |
No comments:
Post a Comment