Migration & Refugees

Record Aid Shortfall Abandons Millions to Their Fate

By Kim-Jenna Jurriaans
Global funding for humanitarian aid interventions saw the biggest shortfalls in 10 years in 2011, according to a new report, raising questions about the international community’s ability to meet a 20-percent greater need for 2012 driven by drought and conflict.

New Satellite Evidence Suggests Sudanese Atrocities

By Carey L. Biron
An NGO here unveiled new satellite evidence on Friday that would seem to suggest the torching of a village in southern Sudan by state soldiers.

A Grim Search for the Missing

By Amantha Perera
A bloody civil war was reaching its climax but this Tamil family, who had already experienced the conflict intimately, had one last decision to make that would prove to be the hardest one of all.

Canada Targets Traffickers, With a Close Eye on Sex Work

By Fawzia Sheikh
The arrests last week of the three remaining perpetrators of the alleged Opapa human trafficking ring, which forced 19 people recruited from Hungary to endure long work days, poor living conditions and no pay in the Canadian construction industry, has cast a light on Ottawa’s new measures to combat the crime.

Voting for Peace in the Distant Desert

By Rebecca Murray
On election day long lines of people from Sabha’s impoverished community of Tayuri waited to vote under the harsh Saharan sun. Four hundred miles from the Mediterranean coast, Sabha is tucked into the volatile southwest bordering Algeria, Niger and Chad.

U.S. Commits 10 Million for Mali Refugees as Intervention Talk Builds

By Carey L. Biron
President Barack Obama on Thursday authorised the release of 10 million dollars in emergency funding to help with the refugee crisis stemming from continued violence in northern Mali, in response to warnings that international aid efforts were in danger of drying up in coming months.

Iowa Firm Accused of Displacing Tanzanians for Profit

By Ethan Freedman
A major U.S. energy company, AgriSol Energy, is accused of engaging in land grabs in Tanzania that would displace more than 160,000 Burundian refugees who have lived there for decades, according to a report by the Oakland Institute, an organisation focused on environmental issues.
Librada Paz in the winter of 1990, when she worked trimming apple trees about two years after arriving in the United States. Credit: Courtesy of Librada Paz

RFK Award Spotlights Struggle for Farmworkers’ Rights

By Kim-Jenna Jurriaans
New York State legislators up in Albany are likely to be seeing a lot of Librada Paz in the near future.

Sri Lanka Emerges as Launchpad for Human Smuggling

By Amantha Perera
If you hold a Pakistani or Afghan passport, be prepared for an unusually lengthy immigration process on entering neighbouring Sri Lanka. Immigration authorities in the island tell IPS they have set up special procedures to check passengers from these two countries.

Canada Severely Curtails Refugee Health Care

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
As major cuts to the Interim Federal Health Program (IFHP) came into effect across Canada last week, medical professionals say both refugees and the Canadian healthcare system as a whole will pay a heavy price.

Going Dutch Means Staying Stuck

By Frank Mulder and Johannes Mulder
Growing numbers of asylum seekers are being denied refugee status by the Dutch authorities, but cannot go back to their own country either. Forced removals are doing little to better the situation.

Some Nurses Take Flight, Others Take to the Streets

By K. S. Harikrishnan
Nurses in India are up in arms against the deterioration of the nursing profession in the country, including unfair wages and the policies of private hospital managements.

Treatment of Gays No Better in South Africa

By Davison Mudzingwa
When Junior Mayema boarded a plane to South Africa from his native Democratic Republic of Congo in 2010, he cried tears of joy because he was finally heading to a country where he could live openly as a gay man.

U.S. High Court Delivers Mixed Verdict on Arizona Immigration Law

By Jim Lobe
In a long-awaited decision with potential electoral consequences, the U.S. Supreme Court Monday struck down three out of four provisions of a controversial Arizona law aimed against undocumented immigrants.
Climate refugees in East Africa. Credit: UNHCR

Climate Refugees – Today’s New Reality*

By Fabíola Ortiz
The continued exodus of Somalis to Kenya and Ethiopia has fuelled the debate on a new issue of global concern: climate refugees, driven from their homes and across borders by extreme weather events.
Outer wall of immigrant detention centre in Málaga. Credit: Inés Benítez/IPS

Notorious Immigrant Detention Centre Closed in Spain

By Inés Benítez
The closure of one of Spain’s eight immigration detention centres on Wednesday was celebrated by human rights groups, which for years have denounced the prison-like conditions in the centres.

In Limbo in the Saharan ‘Free Zone’

By Karlos Zurutuza
The road vanishes under the sand just after the border crossing at Tindouf, western Algeria. Another 20 kilometres into the desert, a billboard welcomes us into the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.

U.S.: Asians Surpass Hispanics as Fastest-Growing Immigrant Group

By Jim Lobe and Ethan Freedman
Asia has surpassed Latin America as the largest source of new immigrants to the United States, according to a major new report that found that Asian-Americans also enjoy the highest incomes and best education of any racial group in the United States.

Refugees in South Sudan Facing “Full-blown Humanitarian Crisis”

By Carey L. Biron
Within the next nine days, drinking water at refugee camps in South Sudan's Upper Nile state will run dry, warned the aid agency Doctors Without Borders on Tuesday. Meanwhile, refugees continue to stream into the state, as the few camps set up to house to entrants are stretched even further beyond capacity.

African Conflicts Push New Refugee Population to 11-Year High

By Jim Lobe
Civil conflicts in four African nations helped push some 800,000 people to seek safe haven in foreign countries during 2011, according to the annual report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), released Monday.
Undocumented immigrants who come to the U.S. as children and are deemed to pose no security risk will no longer be under threat of deportation. Credit: Stephen C. Webster/CC By 2.0

Obama Wins Cautious Praise for Ending Deportation of Minors

By Carey L. Biron and Ethan Freedman
President Barack Obama's administration announced on Friday that the United States would no longer deport certain young immigrants.
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