| Violence in Nigeria drives refugees into Niger. An estimated 20,000 people have fled north-west Nigeria into Niger since April, according to UNHCR. The latest upsurge of violence is not linked to Boko Haram, but to clashes between farmers and herders of different ethnic groups, as well as a spate of banditry and kidnapping for ransom in Nigeria’s Sokoto and Zamfara states. Addressing reporters in Geneva today, UNHCR spokesperson Babar Baloch said refugees arriving to Niger’s Maradi region, the majority of them women and children, described witnessing extreme violence, including machete attacks, kidnappings and sexual violence. Niger is already hosting more than 380,000 refugees and asylum-seekers from Mali and Nigeria as well as its own population of internally displaced people and nearly 3,000 asylum-seekers evacuated from detention centres in Libya. More than 18,000 of the new arrivals have already gone through an initial registration process. UNHCR and its partners and now discussing with the government the possibility of relocating them away from the border area where the risk of incursions from armed groups is high. | |
| Air raids hit crowded residential areas in Syria’s Idlib. First responders known as the White Helmets said 11 people were killed on Monday, including six children, when air strikes hit the town of Ariha, collapsing two buildings only metres away from a busy market. A UK-based monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said a total of 17 civilians were killed on Monday during more than 100 aid raids on Idlib, the opposition’s last stronghold in Syria. More than 200,000 people have been displaced by the escalation of shelling and aerial bombardments in recent weeks. The Syrian government and Russia announced last week the opening of two corridors for civilians to exit the demilitarization zone in Idlib. The UN has said it was not involved in discussions about the corridors and that the movement of civilians should be voluntary and in compliance with international humanitarian law. | | |
| Pope warns against rising intolerance towards migrants and refugees. A day after the European Parliament elections, Pope Francis released his annual message on migrants and refugees with a strongly worded plea for more tolerance. He said that migrants and refugees had become “emblems of exclusion ” and were often considered “the source of all society’s ills”. He described such attitudes as “an alarm bell warning of the moral decline” the world faces. Officials stressed that Francis’ message was not political, but at a press conference launching the message on Monday, the head of the European conference of Catholic bishops, Luxembourg Archbishop Jean Claude Hollerich, said the results of the European Parliament vote “would have been worse” if Francis and the Catholic Church had not consistently stood up for migrants and refugees. | | |
| Colombia and Peru call for more aid to cope with influx from Venezuela. In a joint statement, the presidents of Colombia and Peru on Monday called on the international community to commit more aid to help them cope with an influx of around 2 million Venezuelans to the two countries in recent years. “Colombia and Peru are facing the worst migratory crisis that Latin America has seen in its recent history,” Colombian President Ivan Duque told journalists during a visit to Lima. Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra said the international community had not yet grasped the magnitude of the challenge facing the two developing countries. New guidance issued by UNHCR last week advised States to keep their borders open to Venezuelans, the majority of whom are in need of refugee protection. | | |
| Attacks on Afghan schools have tripled, says UNICEF. Attacks on schools in Afghanistan increased almost threefold last year, denying an education to children in many parts of the country, UNICEF said today. The agency said the number of attacks on schools rose from 68 in 2017 to 192 in 2018. The ongoing conflict and deteriorating security situation left more than 1,000 schools closed by the end of the year. UNICEF said the use of school buildings as polling centres during last year’s parliamentary election may have been a factor behind the rise in attacks. An estimated 3.7 million children – nearly half of all school-aged children in the country – are out of school in Afghanistan. | | |
| Sicily’s ‘doctor of migrants’ wins seat in EU elections. The Guardian reports that Pietro Bartolo , who has dedicated years of his life to treating refugees and migrants on the Italian island of Lampedusa, won a seat in Sunday’s European parliament elections, bucking a trend towards the extreme right in Italy’s south. Running on a centre-left ticket, he finished second behind the candidate for the far-right League. The League took a 34 per cent share of the vote across the country. Bartolo, was the protagonist of Gianfranco Rosi's 2016 documentary, "Fire at Sea", said he would take his fight for justice for refugees and migrants to the corridors of European power in Brussels and Strasbourg. | | |
| Nine-year-old Ahmad from Afghanistan saved himself, his brother and 14 other refugees from suffocating in the back of the refrigerated lorry in which they were being smuggled from France to England when he sent an SOS text to a volunteer he’d met on his journey. Now Ahmad is helping to create a Virtual Reality experience that will immerse viewers in his journey through his own artwork and narration. A GoFundMe page to complete the project has already raised £16,695 of a £20,000 goal. | | |
At least 200 civilians are thought to have been killed in Syria’s Idlib province since violence there began escalating on 30 April.
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