| At least 21 Venezuelans missing after boat sinks. Search teams are combing the Caribbean for at least 21 Venezuelans missing after their boat sank in rough seas early on Wednesday morning while attempting to reach the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. Four survivors have been found by the Venezuelan and Trinidadian Coast Guards, although some reports suggest nine people have been rescued. The accident happened at night on a popular route for refugees and migrants who pay smugglers to reach Trinidad and Tobago. Venezuelan authorities released the names of 23 people confirmed as travelling on the boat, all aged between 17 and 28. UNHCR and the Trinidadian government estimate that 40,000 Venezuelans are living in Trinidad and Tobago, of whom 10,000 have registered as asylum-seekers. Commenting on the incident on Friday, UNHCR spokesperson Babar Baloch said it highlighted “the extreme risks of sea journeys and other irregular cross-border movements undertaken by refugees and migrants”. | |
| Time to expand learning opportunities for Rohingya refugees, say UN leaders. In a statement today at the end of a three-day visit to Bangladesh, UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi, IOM’s director general and the UN’s emergency relief chief highlighted the need for ongoing international support for the humanitarian response in Cox’s Bazar and reiterated their commitment to continue working towards safe and sustainable solutions for Rohingya refugees in Myanmar. They also emphasized the need to prepare Rohingya refugees for their longer-term future. “We must give refugees the chance to learn, build skills and contribute to their communities while also preparing for reintegration when they can return to Myanmar,” said Grandi. “The future of the Rohingya refugees hangs in the balance.” In a report released on Thursday, the International Crisis Group called on the Bangladesh government to lift the ban on formal education for Rohingya refugees and for donors to help improve conditions in refugee settlements housing nearly a million people. In particular, the report calls for a more effective police presence in the settlements to reign in militants and gangs that, it said, were “increasingly operating with impunity”. | | |
| NGOs challenge France’s donation of boats to the Libyan Coast Guard. Eight international NGOs on Thursday filed a legal challenge demanding that France suspend the delivery of six boats to Libya’s Coast Guard out of concerns that the boats would be used to intercept and return refugees and migrants. The donation of the boats was announced by France’s Defence Ministry in February to support Libyan authorities’ efforts “in the fight against illegal immigration”. Amnesty International, one of the NGOs bringing the legal challenge, said delivering the boats would be an “unlawful and reckless decision”, particularly at a time when the armed conflict in Libya is escalating. The administrative court in Paris has 48 hours to make a decision. UNHCR reiterated this week that “no effort should be spared to prevent those rescued at sea from being returned to Libya”. | | |
| Converted warehouse opens as new shelter for asylum-seekers in Texas. The charitable organization Annunciation House this week opened the ‘House of the Refugee ’ – a warehouse converted into a shelter that can accommodate 500 people, in the city of El Paso in the US state of Texas. Previously, Annunciation House had sheltered migrants and asylum-seekers in hotels at a “prohibitive” cost, said executive director Father Ruben Garcia at a press conference on Wednesday. He said his organization was renting the warehouse as an emergency measure to handle the influx of Central American families crossing the Mexican border, looking for asylum in the US. | | |
| Slow road to recovery and reconstruction in Syria's Aleppo. Reuters reports from eastern Aleppo which was recaptured by the government from opposition forces two years ago. In the suburb of Kalasa, bodies still reportedly lie under piles of rubble and state services are minimal . With no state electricity supply, the only source of power are private generators run on rationed diesel fuel. Piped water is now available and more schools have opened as well as state-subsidized bakeries, but lack of work opportunities mean that many people are dependent on boxes of food aid handed out by the World Food Programme and charities. Residents told Reuters that work to rebuild war-damaged buildings was almost entirely done by local people. | | |
| Study finds Germans increasingly hostile toward asylum-seekers. The Friedrich Ebert Foundation, which commissioned the survey, said on Thursday that 54.1 per cent of respondents expressed negative opinions about asylum-seekers, up from 49.5 per cent in 2016 and 44 per cent in 2014. The survey, which had 1,890 participants, found that negative attitudes have grown even as the number of asylum-seekers arriving in Germany has fallen from a high of almost 746,000 in 2016 to 186,000 last year. Negative attitudes were more common in East Germany. | | |
| A new programme is teaching Rohingya refugee and local Bangladeshi women how to embroider and print clothes and household items that will then be sold at one of Bangladesh’s best-known retail outlets. The women receive a small stipend during the six-month training period. The hope is that by the end of the training, they will have gained the skills to earn an income and help support their families. | | |
Nearly half of the 540,000 Rohingya refugee children under the age of 12 in Bangladesh are missing out on any kind of education, while the remainder have access to only very limited schooling.
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