UN Migration Agency Launches New Missing Migrants Website

IOM, the UN Migration Agency has launched its new Missing Migrants Project website: https://missingmigrants.iom.int/. The Missing Migrants Project tracks migrants, including refugees and asylum-seekers, who have died or gone missing while migrating to an international destination.

UAE Orders Emergency Airlift of Relief Supplies to Haiti

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has ordered an emergency airlift of relief supplies to Haiti, which is expected to be severely affected by Hurricane Irma.

UN Migration Agency Appeals for USD18m for Rohingya Refugees

The UN Migration Agency, IOM, in Bangladesh has appealed for an immediate fund of US$ 18 million for humanitarian assistance as tens of thousands of Rohingya continue to stream into Bangladesh since August 25.

Rain and Ruin

Undoubtedly, there were others who suffered more. Even before the rains beat down on Karachi this year, taking a few and then a few more and finally over 20 lives, hundreds others had died in neighbouring countries. The citizens of Karachi died as they do every year in an increasingly destructive monsoon season: a child drowned in an underground tank, two men were electrocuted while riding a motorcycle, another in his home. The run-up to Eid meant that there was livestock everywhere, tied up in markets and outside homes. The waste from these animals mixed with stagnant water — the deadly mix of offal, excrement and raw sewage in standing water — may well raise the number of dead. They will not be included in the official death count for this year’s rains.

Where Is Our Rohingya Policy?

What we have today in the Rakhine State of Myanmar is a regime of ethnic cleansing. This latest round of pogrom of the Rohingyas is the result of the international community's abject lack of action. Not only has the persecution of the Rohingyas not stopped, there has been a renewed vigour in the activity of the state agencies of Myanmar to ensure that the State of Rakhine is emptied of the Rohingyas.

Combating Climate Change Impacts

Jamil is living on the bank of the Brahmaputra, a fisherman, carrying out his ancestral fishing business over the years. As a breadwinning person in the family, he has to feed several mouths. Moreover, Jamil is deeply rooted in his land. Jamil is in dismay, thinking that his business is no longer like back then when he used to travel to the bottom of Brahmaputra with his father by troller to catch fish. Jamil has a favourite flash back. They came back with baskets filled with fishes, and his father nodding his head told the tale of the daunted local sailor whose heroism melted Jamil's heart, and he wanted to play with the jewel blue stream of the Brahmaputra like this sailor. However, after reaching home, their happiness flourished more to join dining as they found the delicious fish curries on the table. Life changes its colour. Recurrent floods and booming industrial growth are grabbing up the lands and shirking his fishing business. However, this time the flood is devastating than they ever have experience. Their lands swamped up, and people started starving. Surprisingly, although relief workers supplied flood, still they spent time with empty bellies because they had no cooking arrangement. Jamil and his people are gripped by fear and uncertainty. They do not want to lose the sacred connection with their land and people. It would be a scary ride for them if their land would become uninhabitable and they would be forced to live in another place.

Indian Ocean Not Another South China Sea, Please

There was a hive of activity this week in Colombo with a variety of international think tanks, strategists, analysts and senior military officers, Foreign Ministers and Ministers exchanging views and taking up positions – the focus being on the Indian Ocean and its surroundings.

The Difference Between Trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of Migrants

Trafficking in persons (TiP) and smuggling of migrants (SoM) directly affect ACP (African, Caribbean and the Pacific Group of States) countries and their European Union counterparts.

Fighting Could Spread to ARMM – Duterte

President Rodrigo Duterte is unlikely to lift martial law in Mindanao before the end of 2017 because of a possible spillover of violence brought about by the fighting in Marawi City to the Muslim autonomous region.

Misframed Facts, Prejudiced Responses

Rohingyas of northern Arakan are facing yet another round of armed atrocities. Not only are they at the receiving end of indiscriminate use of bullets, bayonets and firing from helicopter gunships; their homes, hearths, livestock, crops and businesses are being consumed by bellowing fire deliberately lit by the Burmese security forces and their Rakhine cohorts. Satellite images validate witness accounts and provide correlation with some reported incidents where residences have allegedly been deliberately torched. The carnage follows a series of coordinated attacks by ethnic Rohingya militants on August 25, 2017 against 25 security posts.

Exodus of Refugees Turns Fatal

Law enforcers rescued 19 bodies of Rohingya people, who had been fleeing violence in Myanmar, from the Bay of Bengal after the ill-equipped boats carrying them capsized yesterday.

Floods in South Asia and US: Is Climate Change the Link?

In the past week, there have been devastating floods in Houston, Texas in the United States of America as well as in Nepal, India and Bangladesh, not to mention China as well.

UN Migration Agency Statement on International Day of the Disappeared

Nearly, 23,000 migrant fatalities worldwide have been recorded by IOM, the UN Migration Agency’s Missing Migrants Project since 2014. Overall, 60,000 deaths on migration routes have been recorded in the last twenty years. However, not all deaths and disappearances are reported and/or recorded. In many regions of the world, migrants’ bodies are never found, and many more may never be identified.

Abdullah bin Zayed hopeful of positive outcome from Astana and Geneva negotiations

H.H. Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, expressed his hope that efforts being made by Russia, Saudi Arabia and Egypt regarding Astana and Geneva negotiations on the Syrian crisis would yield fruits.

The Geneva Centre appeals for an end to the persecution of Rohingyans in Myanmar

The Geneva Centre for Human Rights Advancement and Global Dialogue (hereinafter “The Geneva Centre”) – a think tank with special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council – deplores persistent discrimination against the Muslim minority in Myanmar which, as had been foreseen has lead to radicalization of the situation followed by the military clampdown by security forces against the Rohingyans in the Rakhine State in western Myanmar.