| Thousands of Syrians leave desert camp on Jordanian border. At least 7,300 people have left the remote Rukban settlement in south-eastern Syria on the border with Jordan in recent weeks, a spokesperson with the UN’s humanitarian coordination office (OCHA) said on Friday. Those who left organized their own transport to the border area before being moved to four shelters in government-controlled Homs governorate or to their home areas. OCHA noted that some 36,000 people remained in Rukban, where conditions are dire. Reuters reports that some families opted to leave despite fears of arrest or military conscription in government-controlled areas because their children were starving in the camp. The UN’s deputy emergency relief chief, Ursula Mueller, told the Security Council last week that supplies of food and medicines delivered by a UN convoy in February were running out , but that a UN request to deliver more aid to the camp had been refused by the authorities. Mueller said that more than a dozen children at the camp had died from preventable causes since January and that another aid convoy was urgently needed to avoid further deaths. | |
| Refugees forced to fight in Libya. The Telegraph reports that refugees and migrants at five detention centres in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, have been forced to take up arms by militia groups. Some told reporters they had been forced to move ammunition and load weapons, while others said they had been given guns and ordered to fight. On Sunday, Pope Francis called for the evacuation of refugees held in Libyan detention centres as fighting continues to escalate in Tripoli. Air strikes on residential areas of the city reportedly killed four people on Saturday night. More than 3,300 refugees and migrants remain trapped in detention centres near the front lines of the conflict, while an unknown number of others are living in areas where the fighting has cut off escape routes and where access to food is becoming increasingly difficult, according to the UN’s humanitarian coordination office (OCHA). Some 41,000 people have been forced to flee their homes since the start of the conflict on 4 April, according to OCHA. | | |
| Germany stops processing some Syrian asylum claims. German media reported on Saturday that decisions on some Syrian asylum applications have been postponed for the past several weeks pending an assessment of the security situation in Syria by the foreign ministry. In mid-March, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) updated its internal guidelines to take into account the allegedly improved security situation in parts of Syria. Under those guidelines, some Syrian asylum-seekers are being granted only a national form of protection which exempts them from deportation, rather than refugee or subsidiary protection. UNHCR has reiterated its position that Syrians are still in need of international protection. | | |
| More than 1,000 refugees under police protection in Sri Lanka. The Irish Times reports on the growing concern in Sri Lanka for the welfare of hundreds of refugees who have been targeted by mob violence in the wake of the Easter Sunday terror attacks. More than 1,000 refugees are now under police protection in mosques and other buildings as communal tensions rise. Human rights activists have reported “continuous” attacks and harassment of refugees and migrants since the attacks. Sri Lanka’s prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, told AP that authorities were working to ensure their safety. | | |
| Syrian refugees toil for low pay on Turkish hazelnut farms. About 70 per cent of the world’s hazelnuts come from thousands of small farms on Turkey’s northern coast, where a growing number of seasonal workers are Syrian refugees. The New York Times reports that few of them have legal permits, meaning they lack legal protections and are vulnerable to exploitation . Unregulated middlemen often lie about or steal wages that are typically only paid at the end of a harvest. The work itself is gruelling because of the steep terrain, and the meagre sums they earn mean that many Syrian workers have little choice but to conscript their children to work alongside them. | | |
| UK home office accused of incompetent handling of asylum claims. The handling of asylum cases in the UK is being compromised by poorly trained and overworked Home Office staff, allege whistle-blowers. The focus of the allegations, published in The Guardian today, is the Dublin Cessation Team, which enforces regulations determining which EU Member State is responsible for considering an asylum claim and transferring asylum-seekers to those States. The whistle-blowers allege that decisions on whether an applicant can stay in the UK, supposed to take six months, frequently take two years; that asylum-seekers are often unlawfully detained for up to six weeks in immigration removal centres; and that performance targets encourage employees to reject applications without fully examining them. | | |
| Peter Fonagy was a troubled young refugee with thoughts of ending his life before a concerned neighbour referred him to the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families in north London for help. Fifty years later, Fonagy, who went on to become a child psychologist, is the centre’s chief executive. He talked to The Guardian about his remarkable personal journey. | | |
Some 333,400 people were granted asylum by EU Member States in 2018, 40 per cent fewer than in 2017. Almost 30 per cent of those granted protection were Syrians.
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