The Refugee Brief, 23 September 2019
| | Somalis fleeing drought and insecurity arrive in Ethiopia. UNHCR reports that more than 5,000 Somalis have sought refuge in southern Ethiopia so far this year and that more families are expected to arrive in the coming months as Somalia faces its worse harvest since the 2011 famine. The situation is being aggravated further by militant group, Al-Shabab, which demands "taxes" from farming families and threatens their children with forcible recruitment if they don't pay. The Dollo Ado reception centre near the Somali border is struggling to accommodate as many as 80 new arrivals a day while they await registration and relocation to one of the region's five refugee camps. Ahead of the 2019 Climate Action Summit taking place at the UN in New York today, UNHCR said it was increasingly concerned about climate-related displacement, both within countries and across borders. |
 |
Italy opens port to Ocean Viking passengers. Italian maritime authorities on Sunday said that 182 rescued people onboard the Ocean Viking could disembark at the port of Messina in Sicily. It is the second time this month that Italy has accepted passengers from the NGO vessel and comes ahead of a meeting in Malta today where officials from France, Germany, Italy and Malta will try to work out a system to determine which countries will accept refugees and migrants rescued in the Central Mediterranean. In an op-ed published by the Financial Times yesterday, UNHCR head Filippo Grandi described the meeting as "a critical step towards humane solutions that honour our obligations under international human rights law, and maritime conventions". The Ocean Viking, which is jointly operated by Médecins Sans Frontières and SOS Méditerranée, rescued 217 people over several days last week. Malta on Saturday agreed to bring ashore 35 of them who had been rescued in its search-and-rescue zone. Maltese armed forces said another 227 people had been rescued on Saturday from three boats in distress. |
|
|
|
|
Sudanese man shot dead in Libya after being intercepted at sea. The man was fatally shot after he was intercepted at sea and then returned to Libya, UN agencies reported on Friday. The 28-year-old man had been among a group of 103 refugees and migrants whose boat was stopped by the Libyan coast guard on Thursday. They were returned to Abusitta disembarkation point in Tripoli, where many of them attempted to run away from their guards. According to staff from IOM who witnessed the incident, the guards fired into the air and the man was struck by a bullet that ricocheted into his stomach. He died of his wounds despite receiving medical treatment from IOM. A UNHCR spokesperson condemned the attack and said the incident proved Libya is not a safe place to return people rescued at sea. |
|
US and El Salvador sign asylum deal. The United States and El Salvador signed an agreement on Friday aimed at deterring the flow of asylum-seekers to the US. At a signing ceremony in Washington D.C., Kevin McAleenan, the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, described the agreement as "one significant step forward", but few details have been provided about how the agreement will work or who it will impact. In an interview with AP, El Salvador's foreign minister, Alexandra Hill Tinoco, said the agreement could lead to asylum-seekers from third countries seeking protection in El Salvador if they pass through the country on their way to the US. She added that details still needed to be hammered out, including border security, asylum procedures and potential aid from the US. |
|
Greek island grapples with rising number of asylum-seekers. Security and municipal authorities on the Greek island of Lesvos will hold an emergency meeting today after administrators at the Moria reception facility warned on Friday that they could not accommodate any more new arrivals. Some 400 asylum-seekers arrived by boat to Lesvos on Friday, pushing the number of people staying at Moria to 12,000, four times its intended capacity. AP reports that hundreds of people unable to find accommodation inside the reception centre are already sleeping in the open or in tents. The government has promised to increase sea patrols and to seek additional international support, including resources from the EU border protection agency, Frontex. |
|
The African country welcoming refugees. The latest episode of the BBC News series "The Displaced" looks at how Uganda has set itself apart from other countries around the world through its welcome and support to refugees. At Bidibidi refugee settlement in northern Uganda, South Sudanese refugees live in homes similar to those of their Ugandan neighbours, farm plots of land allocated to them, and trade with locals at markets. Instead of viewing the refugees as a burden, local authorities recognize that they bring investment and jobs to the area. While Uganda has struggled to raise the funds it needs to provide aid to the refugees, there are efforts to find long-term solutions that would allow them to support themselves and co-exist with locals. |
|
|
|
|
As world leaders and climate activists converge in New York for today's Climate Action Summit, many refugees already recognize that you don't have to be a head of state to take action. Meet eight refugees who are doing their part – from a Sudanese youth leader working to fight plastic pollution in the Nile, to a Syrian widow hired to tackle Lebanon's garbage crisis, and a Burundian entrepreneur selling clean energy gas in Kigali. |
Extreme weather events and other disasters triggered seven million – a record – of the 10 million new internal displacements recorded in the first half of 2019. |
|
|
| |
No comments:
Post a Comment