| German rescue ship captain goes before Italian court. Carola Rackete, the volunteer captain of the German rescue ship Sea-Watch 3, appeared before a preliminary investigations judge in Sicily on Monday after being arrested at the weekend for docking her vessel carrying 40 rescued refugees and migrants in the Italian port of Lampedusa. After more than two weeks at sea, the passengers were allowed to disembark and are preparing to travel to France, Germany, Finland, Luxembourg or Portugal, reports Politico. A judge is expected to make a decision today about whether Rackete will remain under house arrest or be freed as an investigation continues into charges relating to the alleged collision of her vessel with a patrol boat as it entered Lampedusa port and charges that she had aided and abetted illegal immigration. Sea-Watch International, the German charity that operates the boat, also faces fines of up to €50,000 for entering Italian waters without permission. Germany on Monday called for Rackete’s release, and supporters in both Germany and Italy have raised over €1 million to cover her legal costs. Responding to a question at a daily press briefing, Stephane Dujarric, a spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, said that sea rescue is “a long-standing humanitarian imperative” and that “no vessel or ship master should be at risk of being fined for coming to the aid of boats in distress, where loss of life is imminent”. | |
| Attack on Mali village kills 23. At least 23 people are dead and 300 missing after an attack on Sunday on a village of Fulani herders in central Mali, reports Reuters. Two other Fulani communities were targeted on Sunday evening, but people had already fled, according to a local mayor. He said the attackers burned the village and killed cattle left behind. Tit-for-tat violence between rival Dogon farmer and Fulani herder communities has been escalating this year, stoked by the growing presence of armed Islamist groups. Raids on Dogon villages in June killed more than 40 people. The UN estimates that more than 600 civilians have been killed since the beginning of the year, mainly in the central Mopti region, and that the number of people fleeing violence in the Mopti and Ségou regions has almost quadrupled since last year to 70,000 by May. | | |
| Lebanon troops demolish refugee homes as deadline expires. The Lebanese army began demolishing concrete structures in several informal refugee settlements in Arsal on Monday morning, Al Jazeera reports. The government had given refugees an initial 9 June deadline to take down shelters made of any material other than plastic and wood. It was later extended to 1 July. Aid groups estimated that by 27 June, less than half of the concrete shelters in Arsal had been demolished by their inhabitants. A joint statement by seven NGOs on Monday appealed to the authorities to provide refugees with alternatives. The aid groups estimated that 15,000 people could be made homeless by the demolitions. | | |
| UN envoy will “ring alarm bell” if no action on Rohingya. The UN special envoy for Myanmar, Christine Schraner Burgener, said on Monday that progress in alleviating the crisis that led to more than 720,000 Rohingya fleeing to neighbouring Bangladesh had been slow and that if there continued to be no action, it would be time to “ring the alarm bell ”. Schraner Burgener was responding to questions from countries at the UN General Assembly about the lack of progress in Rohingya refugees being able to return home. She said the first step was to end the heavy fighting in Rakhine State between the military and the Arakan Army, which has displaced some 30,000 people. Myanmar is sending a high-level delegation to Cox’s Bazar to explain the arrangements for repatriation. | | |
| 1.4 million refugees expected to need resettlement in 2020. According to estimates released on Monday by the UN refugee agency, more than 1.44 million refugees living in over 60 countries will be in urgent need of resettlement by next year. Refugees most at risk and in need of resettlement include those from Syria, followed by South Sudanese refugees and refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. UNHCR noted the growing gap between the number of refugees in need of resettlement and the places made available by governments. “We urgently need more countries to come forward and resettle more refugees,” said UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi. He added that with 84 per cent of refugees being hosted by developing countries, “there simply has to be a more equitable sharing of responsibility for global crises”. | | |
| Five ways to improve integration of refugees in Europe. Dominik Hangartner from the Immigration Policy Lab in Switzerland shares five evidence-based ways that EU countries could improve the likelihood of refugees successfully integrating into their new societies. The first is to agree on a working definition of integration that considers its different aspects, from economic to linguistic to psychological. Hangartner advocates making a decision on asylum applications as quickly as possible so integration can begin. He also recommends that authorities use a recently developed algorithm to make better decisions about where to place refugees so they will have the best chance of finding jobs. Policies should be flexible, he added, to take into account concerns in different host communities. | | |
| Lonely Planet looks at some of the restaurants, cafes and food projects around the world that are nurturing the talents of refugees and asylum-seekers. From a food truck run by refugee women in Lebanon to a Syrian restaurant in Germany that hires recently arrived asylum-seekers to the annual Refugee Food Festival, this list tells where you can eat delicious food and support refugees. | | |
Last year, 25 countries admitted 92,400 refugees for resettlement, while 1.2 million refugees were estimated to be in need of resettlement.
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