The Refugee Brief, 26 September 2019
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Call for refugee inclusion in Sustainable Development Goals. Launching the first Sustainable Development Goals Summit in New York this week, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that the world is not on track to achieve the 17 goals by the 2030 deadline and called for stepped up efforts to prevent conflict, address the climate crisis and reduce inequality. A report released this week by the International Rescue Committee found that many countries are falling short of their SDG commitments to "leave no one behind" by excluding refugees and asylum-seekers. Of 44 countries that submitted self-assessments of their national progress towards the goals this year, fewer than one third mentioned refugees and none included data on refugees. At an event on Tuesday, business leaders drew attention to the lack of refugee inclusion as a threat to the success of the SDGs and called on governments to do more, starting with including refugees in their SDG plans and measurements of their progress. |
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Aid group suspends work in north-east Nigeria after army closes offices. International aid agency Mercy Corps on Wednesday suspended its operations in two north-eastern Nigerian states after the army closed four of its offices in the region. Separately on Wednesday, an aid worker with Action Against Hunger, who had been kidnapped along with five others in July, was killed by a faction of Boko Haram in Nigeria's north-east. In a statement, the UN's humanitarian coordinator in Nigeria, Edward Kallon, expressed extreme concern about "the increasingly dangerous and restrictive operation environment" for aid workers trying to deliver humanitarian assistance in the region. Reuters reports that the killing and aid agency closures come against the backdrop of a change in the military's approach to the Boko Haram insurgency that involves the withdrawal of soldiers from many towns to "super camps" that can be more easily defended. In its latest situation update, UNHCR notes that the withdrawals have left many communities vulnerable and correlate with an upsurge in attacks by armed groups that have caused fresh displacement. |
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US signs asylum deal with Honduras. The US administration signed an agreement with Honduras on Wednesday that could force asylum-seekers to seek protection there. Under the agreement, the US would be able to deport to Honduras asylum-seekers who passed through the country on their way to the US southern border. The agreement follows similar ones with El Salvador and Guatemala. All three agreements face a complex process of legal challenges and parliamentary ratification procedures before they can be implemented. Critics argue that none of the countries are safe destinations for people fleeing violence and that their asylum systems lack the capacity to process more asylum claims. |
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Two million children out of school in Yemen. Two million children are out of school in Yemen, a quarter of whom have dropped out since the conflict escalated in March 2015, according to the UN children's fund. In a statement on Wednesday, the agency said the education of a further 3.7 million children is at risk as teachers' salaries have not been paid in more than two years. "Violence, displacement and attacks on schools are preventing many children from accessing school," said Sara Beysolow Nyanti, UNICEF's representative in Yemen. One in five schools in Yemen cannot be used as a direct result of the conflict. Nyanti said out-of-school children faced increased risks of exploitation, including forced labour, early marriage and being recruited to join the fighting. |
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Greek, Turkish leaders discuss reducing refugee and migrant arrivals to Greece. Greece's new prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, met with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the UN General Assembly on Wednesday and reportedly asked for Turkey's cooperation in stemming the recent uptick in arrivals of refugees and migrants to Greece. A Greek official said the two leaders "agreed to make every effort to decrease the flow of migrants". The New Humanitarian reports that the situation at Moria reception centre on the Greek island of Lesvos, where 12,000 people are now staying, continues to deteriorate, with many residents forced to stay outside the main part of the camp in squalid, makeshift shelters with little access to services and security. |
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Syrian-Lebanese champion of refugee rights wins Rafto Prize. Syrian-Lebanese economist Rouba Mhaissen won Norway's Rafto Prize today for her work defending the rights of refugees and migrants. Mhaissen, 31, is the founder and director of Sawa for Development and Aid (SDAID), an organization that has helped Syrian refugees living in Lebanon since 2011. Announcing the prize, the Rafto Foundation described her as "a relentless and powerful defender of the human rights of refugees" who has spoken out against "mounting pressure for the forced return of Syrian refugees, using insights and documentation of the experiences of those that have returned". The Rafto Prize, awarded every year since 1987, aims to shed light on human rights violations and to recognize human rights defenders. |
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A group of young Venezuelan refugees had the chance to document their lives in temporary camps near Brazil's border with Venezuela, as seen through their eyes. Some of them had never held cameras before, but after taking part in a photography workshop run by National Geographic, they learned how to "speak through a photograph", as one participant put it. |
So far this year, 32,685 asylum-seekers have arrived in Greece by sea, surpassing the 32,494 who arrived during the whole of 2018. |
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