| Ugandan refugee facilities “overwhelmed” as thousands flee Congo. Fresh fighting in north-eastern parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has driven some 7,500 people across the border into Uganda since the start of June, overwhelming transit and reception facilities, UNHCR said today. Armed groups have reportedly been attacking villages in DRC’s Ituri Province, torching and looting houses, and killing men, women and children. Most of the refugees are arriving via Lake Albert, where they undergo health screening at a transit centre on the lakeshore before being transported to a reception centre a few kilometres away. UNHCR spokesperson Andrej Mahecic said the pace of arrivals was far outstripping what aid agencies were able to deliver, particularly as Uganda’s refugee response is currently only 17 per cent funded. “The refugees are telling us that more people are likely to arrive in Uganda soon,” he said, adding that some are reportedly being prevented from leaving by armed groups, while others are struggling to afford the fee for the boat journey. UNHCR reported last week that fighting between Hema and Lendu groups in Ituri Province has displaced more than 300,000 people since early June. | |
| Asylum applications in EU fall for third year but rise in some countries. The total number of asylum applications in the European Union dropped to 665,000 in 2018, a 10 per cent decrease from the previous year, according to a report released on Monday by the European Asylum Support Office. EASO said the “relative stability” at EU level concealed “stark variation” between Member States, with France, Greece, Spain and the UK all seeing an increase in asylum claims last year. Germany received the most applications for the seventh consecutive year, despite a 17 per cent decrease compared to 2017. EASO noted an 11 per cent increase in asylum applications during the first five months of 2019, compared to the same period last year, driven by a surge in applications from Venezuelans and other Latin American asylum-seekers, but said the rise was likely a temporary trend and that overall numbers were still well below the peak in applications seen in 2015. | | |
| UN expert fears for civilians in Myanmar after internet shutdown. The Myanmar government’s shutdown of mobile internet services in conflict-affected areas of Rakhine and Chin states could have “serious implications for human rights and humanitarian monitoring”, warned UN Special Rapporteur Yanghee Lee on Monday. The blackout, which came with no warning on 21 June, has affected more than a million people in a region where clashes between the military and the Arakan Army have displaced more than 35,000 civilians and killed dozens of others since late last year. Lee said she had received information that the military was now conducting a “clearance operation”. The same term was used nearly two years ago during the military crackdown on the Rohingya which saw more than 700,000 of them flee to Bangladesh. | | |
| Conditions in Mexico’s immigration detention centres deteriorate. Reuters reports that Mexico’s immigration detention centres are becoming increasingly squalid and overcrowded as authorities step up detentions of refugees and migrants. Reuters spoke to recent detainees at the Siglo XXI detention centre in Chiapas state who were held for several weeks without information about their cases. They described severe overcrowding, sparse water and food, and limited health care. UNHCR told Reuters it was helping some detainees at Siglo XII with asylum applications and that it was concerned about conditions there. Mexico said on Monday that it had deployed 6,500 members of its security forces to its southern border and nearly 15,000 to its northern border with the United States to support migration officials in containment operations. | | |
| Bread and flour run out in Syria’s Rukban settlement. Middle East Eye reports that food shortages are worsening for some 30,000 displaced people who remain in the remote Rukban settlement in south-eastern Syria on the border with Jordan. Residents said it had been three days since bread and flour were last available while the price of other basic food items had skyrocketed. Smuggling routes that once brought food and other supplies into the settlement from government-held areas of Syria have been cut off and the last organized delivery of aid to the camp was in February. A nurse in the camp who runs a makeshift clinic told MEE that she was seeing an increase in patients with malnutrition, many of them pregnant women and children. UN requests to deliver more aid to Rukban hves been refused by the authorities. | | |
| First Global Refugee Forum to discuss new measures for responsibility-sharing. The first ever Global Refugee Forum will take place in Geneva on 17 and 18 December, UNHCR announced on Monday. It will bring together governments, international organizations, civil society, the private sector and refugees themselves to announce new measures for easing pressure on host countries and boosting refugee self-reliance in line with the Global Compact on Refugees agreed by the UN General Assembly last December. One of the main aims of the Compact is to promote more responsibility-sharing in global responses to refugee situations. Addressing an informal meeting of Security Council members on Monday, UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi said the generosity Africans have shown towards those forced to flee their homes should not be taken for granted. | | |
| Rajima and Tasmin have been best friends since Rajima and her family arrived in Bangladesh after fleeing Myanmar. At first, Rajima was too traumatized to speak. Tasmin, who is Bangladeshi, helped her to speak again and now she’s helping her learn to read and write. “She always helps me when I need it most,” says Rajima. “That’s why I love her.” | | |
In 2018, 39 per cent of first-instance decisions on asylum applications in the EU were positive, a seven per cent decrease from 2017.
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