| By Tim Gaynor | 28 February, 2019 | | Last four refugee children leave Nauru for resettlement in US. The last four remaining child asylum-seekers held in Australia’s remote Pacific detention centre have been resettled to the United States, Reuters reports . Under Canberra’s immigration policy, asylum-seekers trying to reach Australia by sea are intercepted and sent for processing to camps in Papua New Guinea and the tiny South Pacific island of Nauru. The Australian government has been under mounting pressure to remove children from Nauru amid warnings about their mental health. Immigration minister David Coleman said the last four children and their families had been resettled in the United States as part of swap deal between Canberra and Washington. In exchange, Australia accepted approximately 30 refugees from Central America. UNHCR has urged Australia to evacuate refugees and asylum-seekers from its off-shore facilities in Nauru and Papua New Guinea, citing the “collapsing health situation” of detainees. | |
| Stateless Rohingya refugee children living in ‘untenable situation,’ UNICEF chief. UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore urged the international community to address the “untenable situation” of some half-a-million stateless Rohingya refugee children in Bangladesh after fleeing violence in Myanmar since 2017. While a massive humanitarian effort has saved countless lives, children are becoming increasingly anxious about their futures, and vulnerable to frustration and despair. Millions of people around the world have no nationality and consequently face a lifetime of impediments and inequities. The Rohingya are the largest stateless group by far. | | |
| The New York Times, citing a leaked Justice Department report, reports thousands of children complained they were sexually abused in U.S. detention centres. The U.S. federal government received more than 4,500 complaints in four years about the sexual abuse of children who were being held at government-funded detention facilities, the Times article said . The records, which involve children who had entered the country alone or had been separated from their parents, detailed allegations that adult staff members had harassed and assaulted children, including fondling and kissing minors, watching them as they showered, and raping them. They also included cases of suspected abuse of children by other minors. | | |
| 12 children died at Rukban camp in Syria this year – UN. Twelve children have died since the start of the year at a camp in a remote desert area in Syria, near the border with Jordan, The National reports, citing UNICEF. “Despite repeated warnings, the deaths of children in Rukban continue to increase at an alarming rate. Since the beginning of the year, one child has died every five days,” Geert Cappelaere, UNICEF regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, said..Earlier this month, UNHCR took part in an aid convoy that delivered desperately needed relief to more than 40,000 people stranded at a makeshift camp in Rukban. | | |
| Food ATMs for refugee camps. In a push to get nourishing, locally procured food to refugees in camps, the World Food Programme and World Vision have teamed up to trial an innovative Food ATM. Refugees will swipe a card to obtain items from the automated dispensary, that they are able to carry and store at home. One Food ATM will have a six-month trial this year. | | |
| In response to an Australian Human Rights Commission report flagging the plight of children held in immigration detention, a composer in Australia has created an opera without words to give ‘voice’ to detained minors, The Guardian reports. | | |
Asylum-seekers who arrive in Australia without a visa wait up to four years to be granted permission by the Government to apply for protection.
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