| “Medically catastrophic” conditions in two Libyan detention centres. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said on Friday that conditions in two detention centres in Libya are “medically catastrophic ” and consistent with reports that at least 22 people have died from suspected tuberculosis and other diseases since September. Humanitarian organizations, including MSF, gained access to the Zintan and Gharyan detention centres south of the capital, Tripoli, in recent weeks. UNHCR secured the release of 96 refugees from Zintan earlier this month, but around 600 detainees remain. MSF said that the medical situation there was critical with only four toilets, no shower and sporadic access to water. UNHCR is calling for countries to offer more resettlement places for refugees and asylum-seekers trapped in Libya to allow more evacuations from detention centres to take place. Libya’s coast guard reported on Saturday that it had intercepted almost 200 refugees and migrants off the country’s coast in recent days and taken them to detention centres in Tripoli. | |
| Central African asylum-seekers welcomed in US state of Maine. Over 200 asylum-seekers from central Africa have arrived in the north-eastern US city of Portland, Maine, over the past week, forcing authorities to convert an exposition centre into an emergency shelter. Al Jazeera reports that authorities have received US$400,000 in donations to assist the new arrivals, while more than 1,200 people have volunteered to help at the expo centre. The state has long wrestled with an aging workforce, and some leaders, including Portland’s mayor, view the asylum-seekers as good news for the long-term health of Maine’s economy. For now, a major challenge for the city is to find permanent housing for the scores of families staying at the expo centre and another shelter. | | |
| Italian officials face prosecution for 2013 shipwreck. Today, a preliminary hearing in Rome will decide whether to prosecute two high-ranking officials of the Italian Navy and Coast Guard on charges of manslaughter and negligence for delays in rescue operations following a shipwreck in October 2013. At least 268 people died in the shipwreck near Lampedusa. The case has been brought by families of the victims, who argue that the deaths could have been avoided if Italian authorities had acted more quickly to coordinate a rescue operation. Al Jazeera reports that the case is taking place at a time when NGO rescue boats have repeatedly been barred from entering Italian ports and Italian and Maltese coastguards regularly refer distress calls to the Libyan coastguard. | | |
| Murder of pro-refugee German politician raises spectre of more attacks. The BBC reports that the murder of senior German politician Walter Lubcke, who passionately defended the rights of refugees, has horrified Germany, not least because police believe that his killing was politically motivated and perpetrated by a right-wing extremist. German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has described Lubcke’s case as an alarm bell. Since his death on 2 June, it has emerged that the mayors of Cologne and Altena, also well-known for their liberal approach to asylum policy, have received recent death threats. Both have survived assassination attempts in recent years. | | |
| UN-supported charity finds new homes for victims of war in eastern Ukraine. The Kyiv Post reports on a pilot project run by a local charity, Proliska, with support from UNHCR, which is purchasing new, inexpensive homes for families whose former homes have been destroyed or damaged by the conflict between Ukraine and the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic. By the end of 2019, 20 grantees – mostly destitute families and lone elderly people – will have been relocated to peaceful government-controlled areas of the region, allowing children to return to school, adults to find better jobs and the elderly to have access to medical care. According to Proliska’s coordinator, moving families into new homes is cheaper and more effective than continually repairing houses in the war zone. | | |
| Boris Cheshirkov was working as a spokesperson for UNHCR in his native Bulgaria in 2015 when an asylum-seeker was shot dead at the border. In speaking out against the violence, Boris himself became the target of an online hate campaign so virulent that he was forced to leave his country. He took up a post on the Greek island of Lesvos, where he found himself at the epicentre of Europe’s refugee emergency. He spoke with Melissa Fleming for the latest instalment of Awake at Night, UNHCR’s podcast series, about how his experiences on Lesvos changed him completely. | | |
In 2018, more than two thirds of all refugees worldwide came from just five countries: Syria, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Myanmar and Somalia.
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