Angelina Jolie puts spotlight on Rohingya crisis. After spending Tuesday talking to Rohingya refugees, UNHCR special envoy Angelina Jolie addressed a group of them on a hilltop overlooking Kutupalong refugee settlement in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar district. “The way you have been treated shames us all,” she said, adding that the crisis which forced more than 700,000 people to flee their homes in Myanmar was the result of decades of discrimination that had gone unaddressed. She said the responsibility for making it possible for them to return home “lies squarely with the government and the authorities in Myanmar” and their commitment to ending “the cycle of violence and displacement”. Jolie’s visit comes as the UN prepares to launch a new appeal for $920 million to support the refugees and the communities hosting them. “Bangladesh is a generous country…but with limited resources,” said Jolie. “It cannot be left to shoulder the responsibility of hosting Rohingya refugees alone.” | | |
| Dramatic drop in South Sudan fighting since peace agreement, says UN envoy. The violence in South Sudan that has created Africa’s largest refugee crisis has “dropped dramatically ” since last September’s peace agreement, the head of the UN Mission in South Sudan told reporters on Tuesday. David Shearer said that many “positive things” had happened since President Salva Kiir and his political rival and former deputy Riek Machar signed the agreement. He added that many issues remained including ongoing fighting in the south of the country and a loss of momentum in the peace process. In the five years since conflict broke out in South Sudan, more than four million people have fled their homes. More than half of them are living as refugees in neighbouring countries. | | |
| As more Venezuelans flee, Colombians ramp up efforts to help. Al Jazeera reports from Colombia that, whereas previously the humanitarian crisis caused by the arrival of thousands of Venezuelans every day was largely confined to the border area around the town of Cúcuta, it is now pushing deeper into Colombia and places along the route towards the Ecuadorian border, like the city of Pamplona. Locals in Pamplona have mounted a grassroots humanitarian response, turning their homes into shelters and soup kitchens. Many of the new arrivals are families with children in an increasingly dire state of need. | | |
| France’s Basque region grapples with growing refugee and migrant arrivals. Reuters reports that French authorities are struggling to manage the growing numbers of refugees and migrants arriving from Spain after crossing the snow-capped mountains that straddle the border between the two countries. Spain became the primary entry point to Europe in 2018 with 58,600 refugees and migrants crossing the Western Mediterranean. According to Reuters, many of the new arrivals head north and cross the French border hidden in trucks, riding in buses, or on foot. The town of Bayonne, 40 km north of the border, is now grappling with a humanitarian situation that is stretching the town’s finances. | | |
| What’s driving people to flee El Salvador? This film by the New York Times reports on the gang violence that is driving so many El Salvadorians to make the dangerous journey to the US border. Many of them end up deported back to a processing centre where they are given a quick meal and a new pair of shoes before being thrown back into the same world they were trying to escape. Several of the newly arrived deportees say they will try again. “I see myself as forced to try again because I can’t continue in this country,” says a former police officer who fled death threats from gangs. | | |
| Social media a blessing and a curse for refugees held captive by smugglers. Time Magazine reports that for refugees and migrants held captive by smugglers in Libya, Sudan and Niger, social media sites like Facebook can offer both a lifeline to ask for help and a platform for smugglers to increase their ransom demands . According to victims and experts, smugglers are more likely to use social networks to demand ransom money for Eritreans, Ethiopians and Somalis because they are perceived to be part of richer, well-connected diasporas. Photos and videos of the refugees being tortured are often posted to Facebook with ransom demands and deadlines for payment. | | |
| Artists from across Iraq are displaying their work in “Return to Mosul”—the city’s first art exhibition since before it was seized by Islamic State, which prohibited most forms of art. The show is being held in the newly re-opened Royal Hall of the Mosul Museum, which was looted and destroyed by Islamic State and in the ensuing war to wrest control of the city. | | |
More than twice as many Rohingya are now living in exile than in their home country of Myanmar.
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