The first case of coronavirus was found near Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh.Over a million Rohingya refugees are now cramped in hilly terrains of Ukhiya in southeastern regions of Cox’s Bazar along Bangladesh border with Myanmar. Credit: ASM Suza Uddin/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 30 2020 (IPS)

As coronavirus makes its way through different continents, countries, and communities around the world having claimed more than 23,000 lives, experts are ringing alarm bells about the implications of the disease as it hits South Asia, which hosts almost 2 billion of the world’s population. 

In South Asia, the number of cases being reported has increased in March, the same month the first fatalities were detected in the region. 

Last week, the first case of coronavirus was found near Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, where more than 850,000 Rohingya refugees are placed. Meanwhile, four people tested positive in Mumbai’s slums, triggering concerns about what it means in places where people live in close quarters, often in poor and unhygienic conditions.

Experts are worried that the pandemic will have deadly effects on a region already suffering from issues such as communal violence in India, refugee crisis between Myanmar and Bangladesh, and terrorism in Afghanistan. 

Refugee camps and slums

“When you have a pandemic like the Covid-19 affecting all over the world including countries with the best healthcare, the Rohingya refugees in the camps in Cox’s Bazar are certainly at a higher risk,” Saad Hammadi, Amnesty International’s Regional Campaigner in South Asia, told IPS.  

In Bangladesh, the testing capacity is currently only in the capital, he said. “Clinics inside the camps are only capable of providing basic healthcare whereas the pandemic can require very complex healthcare services including mechanical ventilation for some patients, particularly the elderly people with existing respiratory conditions,” he added. 

As for slums in places like Mumbai, he says the population density poses an “inevitable challenge” in the current situation. From slums in Mumbai, to Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan and Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh, the trials are similar. 

“For these people social distancing is a luxury of space that they do not have,” says Hammadi. “Their access to health, food, shelter and the most essential services are usually the minimum that is afforded to anyone. Clearly, their vulnerability to such pandemic is much higher due to living in crammed conditions, deficiency in nutrition and poor sanitation and hygiene.” 

Louise Donovan, Communications/PI Officer at the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, agreed that the physical nature of the camps can make it challenging to ensure social distancing. 

She said they have ramped up efforts with heightened communication methods such as radio spots, videos, posters, leaflets to increase awareness about the situation. They’ve also ramped up hygiene measures to ensure water and soaps are available to everyone there. 

Both Donovan of UNHCR and Hammadi of Amnesty highlighted the importance of digital communication at a time like this, in order to ensure the communication is done correctly. 

“Mobile data communications restrictions in the Rohingya refugee camps should be lifted,” said Donovan. “Life-saving health interventions require rapid and effective communication.” 

“The best that Bangladesh can do is immediately lift restrictions on internet and telecommunications in the camps and provide refugees with accurate information about the virus,” said Hammadi. 

Terrorism in Afghanistan

Meanwhile in Afghanistan, the country is reeling from various issues such as a recent terrorist attack that killed 25 at a Sikh temple and U.S. pulling $1 billion in aid within days of each other. 

“There are several districts across Afghanistan which are under direct control of Taliban where people are deprived of basic services including health care as well as remain unaware of developing information in relation to precautions and preventions on COVID19 spread in Afghanistan,” Samira Hamidi,  South Asia Campaigner at Amnesty International in Afghanistan, told IPS. “ If Taliban do not cooperate under international humanitarian law and allow the health workers to enter these districts, the spread of COVID19 can cause massive harm to people.”

Given that social distancing has been named a crucial factor in containing the disease, a major force that can help stop is pausing conflicts. U.N. secretary general António Guterres on Monday appealed for a global ceasefire in order to contain the current spread of the disease. But experts are worried if countries and world leaders will comply with that. 

Hamidi highlighted this as well, and pointed out the “lack of an unconditional ceasefire and lack of continuation of reduction in violence” which, if continued, will make the situation worse. 

“If the insecurity continues, it will make the health workers’ contribution impossible to provide immediate support to COVID19 patients,” Hamidi said. 

On a local level, relief organisations are doing their part while looking up to the governments to lift current restrictions that are detrimental to the efforts. 

Donovan says UNHCR has trained 180 community health workers to raise awareness about the issue in the camps, who are expected to train a further 1,400 refugee community health workers. For isolation, the organisation has 400 beds available if a need arises, but have said they’re working with the government to have 1,500 beds. 

Hammadi, of Amnesty, has said it’s crucial for governments to be transparent about the information and spread of the disease. 

“The pandemic is set to break into thousands of cases in a region that hosts nearly 600 million people who are vulnerable and marginalised,” he said. “In spite of a bleak prospect of a respite from the pandemic anytime soon, countries will do better with transparency in their reporting of the case than withholding vital information that can help researchers and health experts to respond to the crisis more effectively.”

By James Reinl
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 23 2019 (IPS)

Two years after the start of an exodus of Rohingya civilians from genocide-like attacks in Myanmar, members of the mainly Muslim minority have little hope of securing justice, rights or returning to their homes, according to the United Nations and aid groups.

Reports this week from the U.N. and Oxfam, a charity, show that, on the second anniversary of the ethnic violence in Rakhine state, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya remain refugees in neighbouring Bangladesh or are effectively interred in domestic, government-run camps.

“Rohingya people feel as though they are in limbo with no end in sight. They are alive, but merely surviving,” said Elizabeth Hallinan, an Oxfam advocate on Rohingya issues, in a statement marking the beginning of the exodus on Aug. 25, 2017.

More than 730,000 Rohingya civilians fled Myanmar’s Rakhine state into Bangladesh amid a military-led crackdown in August 2017 that the U.N. and Western governments say included mass killings and gang-rapes.

Oxfam says some 500,000 Rohingya remain in Myanmar, including almost 130,000 confined in government-run camps and where red tape often leaves them unable to send children to school or to visit a doctor.

This week, Bangladesh and the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) announced plans to assess whether some 3,450 Rohingya refugees will accept Myanmar’s offer to return home, nearly a year after another major repatriation scheme failed.

Many refugees refuse to go back, fearing more violence, Radhika Coomaraswamy, an expert from the U.N. Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, told reporters Thursday, as persecution continues to threaten them in the South Asian nation.   

Coomaraswamy described satellite images of what had been Rohingya villages in Rakhine state, where the government’s slash-and-burn approach had seen settlements “bulldozed” until there was “not a tree standing”.

Sending Rohingya refugees back to Myanmar would expose them to “near-apartheid laws”, and a government that must give approval for marriages between Buddhist women and men of other faiths, including Muslims.

“What are we sending them into, unless there’s some kind of promises being made for a pathway to citizenship that will give them rights?” Coomaraswamy asked in a press briefing in New York 

“It’s not only the issue of safety, physically, but also the fact that they should not have to live like people are living in” the displacement camps in Sittwe and elsewhere in Rakhine state, she added.

In Coomaraswamy’s report, the panel of independent investigators, set up by the U.N. Human Rights Council in 2017, said the sexual violence committed by Myanmar troops against Rohingya women and girls in 2017 showed a genocidal intent to destroy the group.

“Hundreds of Rohingya women and girls were raped, with 80 percent of the rapes corroborated by the mission being gang rapes. The Tatmadaw (military) was responsible for 82 percent of these gang rapes,” the 61-page document said.

Myanmar’s government has denied entry to the U.N. investigators, who instead visited refugee camps in Bangladesh, Malaysia and Thailand, and spoke with humanitarians, academics and researchers.

Myanmar’s mission to the U.N. did not answer requests for comment from IPS. Myanmar denies widespread wrongdoing and says the military campaign across hundreds of villages in northern Rakhine was in response to attacks by Rohingya militants.

Coomaraswamy called on world leaders and CEO’s to cut business ties with the Tatmadaw’s businesses, and said there was a small window of hope for prosecutions under a U.N. investigation mechanism in Geneva.  

The panel has gathered new evidence about alleged perpetrators and added their names to a confidential list to be given to U.N. human rights boss Michelle Bachelet and another U.N. inquiry that is readying cases for possible future trials.

One month after the attack on Tajoura, Libya which killed 53 detainees and injured more than 87 others, little has been done to help the incarcerated migrants in the turbulent country. Many sub-Saharan Africans migrants go to Libya hoping to make it to Europe and a better life. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

By James Reinl
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 1 2019 (IPS)

It is almost one month since an airstrike on a detention centre in Libya killed and injured scores of migrants and refugees locked up inside, many of whom were detained for doing nothing worse than fleeing instability or seeking better lives in Europe.

This week, it looked like world powers were finally making an effort to persuade Libya’s United Nations-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) to come good on its promise to free the thousands of refugees in lockups under its control.

At a U.N. Security Council meeting on Monday, diplomats were “concerned by the situation of refugees and migrants” in Libya, and were poised to take action, last month’s council president and Peruvian envoy Gustavo Meza-Cuadra told reporters afterwards.

Earlier, diplomats heard from the U.N.’s envoy to Libya, Ghassan Salame, who said the Jul. 2 bloodbath at the facility in Tajoura, a suburb of Libya’s capital, Tripoli, should prompt officials to close such centres once and for all.

“What is required is that they be shuttered,” Salame said via a video link from Tripoli.

“I urge the council now to call upon the authorities in Tripoli to take the long-delayed but much-needed strategic decision to free those who are detained in these centres.”

One month after the attack on Tajoura, which killed 53 detainees and injured more than 87 others — mostly sub-Saharan Africans who were seeking better lives in Europe — little has been done to help the incarcerated migrants in the turbulent country.

Despite GNA pledges to close Tajoura, officials instead filled the bombed-out hangar on a military base with some 200 new migrants and refugees since the late-night air strike that caused chaos and carnage in eastern Tripoli.

To make matters worse, new detainees include migrants who were picked up by Libya’s coast guard after their vessel capsized in the Mediterranean on Jul. 26 — a catastrophe that saw as many as 150 passengers drown.

Some 5,000 refugees and migrants are detained in facilities under the control of or linked to the GNA, Salame said. Some 3,800 of these were on the front lines of fighting in the North African country’s civil war.

The Lebanese diplomat also criticised the European Union (EU) for funding a scheme that sees Libya’s coast guard intercept migrant boats at sea before returning them to Libya and detaining them in places like Tajoura. 

Likewise, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and other campaign groups have criticised the 28-nation bloc for bemoaning Libya’s ill-treatment of migrants while at the same time backing schemes that lead to abuse.

Amnesty has decried the “utterly inhumane” conditions inside Libya’s migrant lockups, where detainees have “little access to food, water or medical care” and endure “brutal treatment, torture, rape – and even being sold”.

John Dalhuisen, a regional expert with the European Stability Initiative, a think-tank, said the EU was complicit in abuses by making it harder for refugees and migrants to exit Libya and cross the Mediterranean.

“The EU has backed a policy that essentially amounts to containment. It has invested and trained the Libyan coast guard and reduced its own rescue services in a very successful effort to stop migrants reaching Europe,” Dalhuisen told IPS.

“It made some effort to improve conditions in Libyan detention facilities and secure access to them for international agencies, but with very modest results.”

An EU spokesperson told IPS that it backs Libya’s coast guard in an effort to stop refugees and migrants from perishing at sea, but that the 28-nation bloc was strongly against locking them up back on Libyan soil.

U.N. bodies, including the refugee agency UNHCR and the International Organisation for Migration, have assisted detained migrants and even arranged for some to be released and sent back to their countries of origin.

Some have been assessed and gained refuge in Europe; others have been settled elsewhere, such as Niger. But these schemes have only affected a tiny proportion of the estimated half-million refugees and migrants in Libya.    

Judith Sunderland, an associate director for HRW, said “space is limited” in UNHCR resettlement schemes and there are logjams, with few “longer-term solutions” for settling refugees after temporary stops in Niger.

“The UNHCR’s programme to evacuate asylum seekers and refugees from Libya is severely handicapped by the low number of resettlement pledges by European countries and the slow pace of actual resettlement of the few that are processed,” Sunderland told IPS.

The situation is complicated by turbulence across Libya, which has seen little but violence since the 2011 uprising that killed president Muammar Gaddafi and saw the nation collapse into a civil war that continues today.

The airstrike that devastated Tajoura occurred after renegade military commander Khalifa Haftar and his self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) launched an offensive in early April to seize control of Tripoli. The GNA blames the LNA for the deaths, which the LNA denies.

Elinor Raikes, a regional director for the International Rescue Committee, an aid group that operates in Libya, said that locking up migrants was not a problem only in North Africa, but part of a global anti-immigrant phenomenon.

“Arbitrary detention is not a just response to seeking safety, but countries across the world, including in Europe and the United States, are taking part in what is a deeply concerning trend,” Raikes told IPS.

“Detention has become a form of border management, and this has meant that thousands of people are intercepted at sea and on land and then detained in inadequate living conditions, often in overcrowded cells at risk of disease and infection.”

United Nations are warning of another drought in the Horn of Africa. Eight years ago famine left more than 260,000 dead. Pictured here is a child from drought-stricken southern Somalia who survived the long journey to an aid camp in the Somali capital Mogadishu during the 2011 famine. Credit: Abdurrahman Warsameh/IPS

By James Reinl
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 25 2019 (IPS)

Humanitarian groups and the United Nations are warning of another drought in the Horn of Africa, threatening a repeat of the deadly dry spell and famine that claimed lives in Somalia and its neighbours eight years ago.

The British charity Oxfam said Thursday that more than 15 million people across drought-stricken parts of Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia now needed handouts and warned of a hefty death toll unless donors stumped up cash fast.

“We cannot wait until images of malnourished people and dead animals fill our television screens. We need to act now to avert disaster,” said Lydia Zigomo, Oxfam’s regional director for the Horn of Africa.

According to an Oxfam report, donors were quick to dig into the pockets for a drought in 2017, helping to stave off a famine that could have been as deadly as the 2011 dry spell that left more than 260,000 dead, and many more hungry and sick.

But while the humanitarian response was well-funded back in 2017, donor governments have not raised enough cash yet this time around, added Zigomo, a human rights lawyer from Zimbabwe.

“We learned from the collective failures of the 2011 famine that we must respond swiftly and decisively to save lives. But the international commitment to ensure that it never happens again is turning to complacency,” said Zigomo.

“Once again, it is the poorest and most vulnerable who are bearing the brunt.”

The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR has also sounded the alarm. Somalia’s recent April-June and October-December rainy seasons were drier than expected, worsening an arid spell that was already hitting farmers and herders across the turbulent country. 

Some 5.4 million Somalis were expected to be facing food shortages by September, and 2.2 million of them would need “immediate emergency assistance” UNHCR spokesperson Babar Baloch warned last month.

Donors had only handed over one fifth of the 711 million dollars that was requested in an appeal in May, added Baloch.

“The latest drought comes just as the country was starting to recover from a drought in 2016 to 2017 that led to the displacement inside Somalia of over a million people,” Baloch told reporters in Geneva.

“Many remain in a protracted state of displacement.” 

Last month, the European Union launched a 3.2 million euro scheme to manage water sources and agriculture and lessen the impact of drought, in cooperation with officials in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, and the northern breakaway region of Somaliland.

“Water and land are critical resources for the Somali economy and people’s livelihoods but are also extremely vulnerable to natural disasters and climate change,” said EU diplomat Hjordis D’Agostino Ogendo.

“While access to water needs to increase, needed infrastructures are to be designed and managed in a sustainable way.”

Somalia has seen little but drought, famine and conflict since dictator Siad Barre was toppled in 1991. The country’s weak, U.N.-backed government struggles to assert control over poor, rural areas under the Islamist militant group al Shabaab.

Droughts are getting worse globally, according to the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). By 2025, some 1.8 billion people will experience serious water shortages, and two thirds of the world will be “water-stressed”.

Though droughts are complex and develop slowly, they cause more deaths than cyclones, earthquakes and other types of natural disaster, the UNCCD warns. By 2045, droughts will have forced as many as 135 million people from their homes.

“With climate change amplifying the frequency and intensity of sudden disasters … and contributing to more gradual environmental phenomena, such as drought and rising sea levels, it is expected to drive even more displacement in the future,” added Baloch.

But U.N. experts say there is hope. By managing water sources, forests, livestock and farming, soil erosion can be reduced and degraded land can be revived, a process that could also help tackle climate change.

African migrants in Libya. Libya is one of the main departure points for African migrants, fleeing poverty and war, to try to reach Italy by boat. Some 3,800 migrants and refugees are held in government-run detention centres in Tripoli and elsewhere in Libya in what human rights groups and the U.N. say are often inhuman conditions. A military strike on a detention centre for migrants in Libya claimed dozens of lives on Tuesday. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS.

By James Reinl
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 4 2019 (IPS)

A military strike on a detention centre for migrants in Libya that claimed dozens of lives on Wednesday Jul. 3 has reignited a debate over the poor treatment of the mainly African people who transit through the turbulent country.

The United Nations has called for an investigation into the strike on Tajoura detention centre, which held some 600 people in a suburb of the Libyan capital Tripoli — part of a global chorus condemning the attack, which killed at least 44 people and injured 130 others.

But the strike followed repeated warnings about the vulnerability of migrants in guardhouses near Libya’s hotspots, and raises tough questions about whether it was necessary to lock them up in the first place.

“This is not the first time that migrants and refugees have been caught in the crossfire, with multiple airstrikes on or near detention centres across Tripoli since the conflict started in the city,” said Prince Alfani, a coordinator for the humanitarian medical group Médecins Sans Frontières.

“What is needed now is not empty condemnation but the urgent and immediate evacuation of all refugees and migrants held in detention centres out of Libya.”

By one estimate, some 3,800 migrants and refugees are held in government-run detention centres in Tripoli and elsewhere in Libya in what human rights groups and the U.N. say are often inhuman conditions.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet called for a war crimes probe into the strike, while condemning the “overcrowding” in Libya’s lockups for migrants and the rape and other violations that occur inside them.

“I also repeat my call for the release of detained migrants and refugees as a matter of urgency, and for their access to humanitarian protection, collective shelters or other safe places, well away from areas that are likely to be affected by the hostilities,” said Bachelet.

Libya is one of the main departure points for African migrants, fleeing poverty and war, trying to reach Italy by boat. But many are picked up and brought back by the Libyan coastguard, in a scheme backed by the European Union.

Two U.N. agencies — the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and UNHCR, the U.N.’s Refugee Agency — said they had relocated 1,500 refugees from lockups in Libya’s hotspots to safer areas in recent months.

“Including those victims at Tajoura, some 3,300 migrants and refugees remain arbitrarily detained inside and around Tripoli,” the two agencies said in a statement. “Moreover, migrants and refugees face increasing risks as clashes intensify nearby. These centres must be closed.”

In May, UNHCR had already called for the Tajoura centre to be evacuated after a projectile landed some 100 metres away, injuring two migrants. Shrapnel from that blast tore through the lockup’s roof and almost hit a child.

This week’s strike was the highest publicly reported toll from an air strike or shelling since eastern forces under Khalifa Haftar launched an offensive three months ago to take Tripoli, the base of Libya’s internationally-recognised government.

The U.N. Security Council was expected to condemn the attack late Wednesday,  Jul. 3, though it remained unclear whether it was the fault of Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) force, the U.N.-backed Tripoli-based government’s forces or another group.

Haftar’s LNA, allied to a parallel government based in eastern Libya, has seen its advance on Tripoli held up by robust defences on the outskirts of the capital, and said it would start heavy air strikes after “traditional means” of war had been exhausted.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres was “outraged” by the “horrendous incident” and called for an “independent investigation” to prosecute those responsible for what many onlookers call a war crime, said his spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

“This incident underscores the urgency to provide all refugees and migrants with safe shelter until their asylum claims can be processed or they can be safely repatriated,” Dujarric told reporters Wednesday.

Haftar’s bid to capture Tripoli has derailed U.N. efforts to broker an end to the mayhem that has ravaged the hydrocarbon-producing North African country since the brutal, NATO-backed overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

In 2011 Somalia also experienced severe drought and many were forced to leave their homes and make the long journey to an aid camp in the Somali capital Mogadishu. Credit: Abdurrahman Warsameh/IPS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 5 2019 (IPS)

Climate-related displacement and food insecurity is not a future possibility, but it is already happening and it’s only projected to worsen without urgent action in coming years.

Yesterday, ahead of World Environment Day, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) sounded the alarm on the growing impacts of drought in Somalia.

“UNHCR and humanitarian partners fear that severe climatic conditions combined with armed conflict and protracted displacement could push the country into a far bigger humanitarian emergency,” said UNHCR spokesperson Babar Baloch.

As a result of below average rains and a worsening drought, an estimated 5.4 million people are likely to be food insecure by September in many parts of the Horn of Africa nation. Of those, over two million will be in severe conditions and in need of immediate emergency assistance.

The drought has also forced nearly 50,000 people to flee their homes in search of food, water, and aid. More than 7,000 were displaced last month alone.

“People who are already displaced because of conflict and violence are also affected by the drought, at times disproportionally,” Baloch added.

The latest crisis is occurring at the wake of a two-year drought that ended in 2017, which displaced over one million.

According to UNHCR, weather-related hazards such as storms, droughts, and wildfires displaced 16.1 million people in 2018.

Climate-related crises are only expected to occur with greater frequency across the world.

In a new, terrifying report, Australian think tank Breakthrough National Center for Climate Restoration warned that climate change poses a “new-to-mid-term existential threat to human civilisation.”

“This policy paper looks at…the unvarnished truth about the desperate situation humans, and our planet, are in, painting a disturbing picture of the real possibility that human life on earth may be on the way to extinction, in the most horrible way,” said Admiral Chris Barrie in the foreword.

The assessment warns that the world’s currently on its way to least 3° Celsius of global warming and projects that by 2050, one billion people in regions such as the Middle East and West Africa will have to relocate due to unliveable climate conditions.

There will also be severe decreases in water availability and a collapse in agriculture and food production.

“The scale of destruction is beyond our capacity to model with a high likelihood of human civilisation coming to an end,” the report states, noting that such climate impacts will accelerate conflict and instability.

But not all hope is lost.

The report urges governments to have strong leadership and mobilise resources “akin in scale to the World War II emergency mobilisation” in order to quickly build a zero-emissions industrial system.

“A doomsday future is not inevitable! But without immediate drastic action our prospects are poor. We must act collectively,” said Barrie.

UNHCR similarly called on more international action to prevent climate-related disasters, increase efforts to strengthen resilience, and protect those already affected by climate change.

Last month, aid agencies launched a 710-million-dollar appeal in response to the drought in Somalia. Only 20 percent has so far been funded.

“With climate change amplifying the frequency and intensity of sudden disasters, such as hurricanes, floods and tornados, and contributing to more gradual environmental phenomena, such as drought and rising sea levels, it is expected to drive even more displacement in the future,” Baloch said.

A Rohingya couple, Mohammad Faisal and his wife Hajera, pose for a photo with their child at their camp at Teknaf Nature's Park, Bangladesh. Some refugees had to walk 60 miles on foot to reach the safety of Bangladesh Credit: Farid Ahmed/IPS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 10 2019 (IPS)

In light of the millions of refugees escaping persecution in search of a safer, more prosperous future, a new campaign aims to raise awareness of the difficult journeys such populations take around the world.

Launched by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the 2 Billion Kilometres to Safety raises awareness of the long, precarious journeys that many refugees take and calls on the public to amp up support.

“Every day, we are inspired by the acts of kindness from people who are doing their very best to improve life for refugees: the activists, the communities hosting refugees, businesses, donors, volunteers,’” said UNHCR Deputy High Commissioner Kelly T. Clements.

“This campaign will encourage people to support refugees through something they are already doing – walking, cycling, running,” she added.

According to UNHCR, people who are forced to flee travel approximately 2 billion km every year to reach the first point of safety.

In 2016, South Sudanese refugees travelled over 400 miles to reach Kenya while Rohingya refugees in Myanmar travelled up to 50 miles in search of safety in Bangladesh.

Later aided by the U.N. agency, Alin Nisa and her family were forced to flee from Myanmar to Bangladesh after an armed group attacked the village and abducted community members.

Crossing mountains and rivers, Nisa carried her two young children while her husband carried his mother who could not walk.

They travelled 60 miles on foot, finally reaching the Kutupalong refugee settlement in Bangladesh.

Similarly, Zeenab and her family fled Syria after their home was destroyed and travelled over 90 miles to Jordan’s za’atari refugee camp.

“We’re grateful. Winter here is difficult, but it’s still better than Syria,” she told UNHCR.

And how better to understand refugees’ plight than actually walking in their shoes and covering the same distance?

Clements highlighted the importance of remembering refugees’ very real and dangerous journeys, especially as misconceptions continue to be spread about them.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres echoed similar sentiments upon the adoption of the Global Compact for Migration (GCM) in December, stating: “There are many falsehoods about the world’s migrants. But we must not succumb to fear or false narratives. We must move from myth to reality.”

Such narratives have been most apparent in the United States which has seemingly shut the door on refugees.

The Trump administration first implemented a 120-day refugee ban, followed by a ban on refugees from “high-risk” countries including South Sudan and Syria.

In January 2017, the U.S. government cut the refugee quota by more than half, which led to only 22,000 refugees being resettled in the country in 2018, the lowest rate since 1980.

Most recently, the administration has deployed troops at the U.S.’ southern border in an effort to prevent refugees and migrants who have travelled across Central America from entering the country or seeking asylum.

Anti-refugee rhetoric has also been on the rise in Europe, including Belgium which has seen violent riots against the country’s participation in the GCM.

People across 27 countries will take part in the 2 Billion Kilometres to Safety campaign, and UNHCR hopes to raise over 15 million dollars to support refugees with registration, food, water, shelter, and healthcare.

UNHCR’s funding requirements for 2019 amount to a record 8.5 billion dollars and has thus far received 926 million dollars in pledges.

Though the GCM is a stepping stone towards awareness and action, there is still much left to do.

U.N. Special Representative for International Migration Louise Arbour expressed such views in her closing remarks at the GCM conference, stating: “To the millions who have left their homeland, either recently or a long time ago, most of them in full compliance with the law, we have much more to offer: whether an opportunity to return home, after years abroad, taking back with them their skills and the fruits of their labour, or whether an increased chance to see their children having a better future in a country that they will be proud to call their home.”

Globally, over 68 million have been forcibly displaced. Of this, 25 million are refugees, a figure that has increased by almost 3 million within just one year.

A family living in a refugee camp in Erbil, Iraq. Credit: Annabell Van den Berghe/IPS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 23 2016 (IPS)

Displacement has increased to unprecedented levels due to war and persecution, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has found.

In a new report, entitled Global Trends which tracks forced displacement globally, UNHCR found that 65.3 million were displaced at the end of 2015, compared to 59 million just 12 months earlier. This is the first time in the organisation’s history that the threshold of 60 million has been crossed.

Globally, 1 in every 113 people is now either an asylum-seeker, internally displaced or a refugee. This represents a population greater than the United Kingdom and would be the 21^st largest country in the world.

“More people are being displaced by war and persecution and that’s worrying in itself, but the factors that endanger refugees are multiplying too,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi during the launch of the report.

Though the Syrian conflict continues to generate a large proportion of refugees in the world and garners significant international attention, other reignited conflicts have been contributing to the unprecedented rise in displacement including Iraq.

Iraq currently has the third-largest number of internally displaced persons (IDPs), and alongside Yemen and Syria, the Middle Eastern nation accounts for more than half of all new internal displacements.

By the end of 2015, there were 4.4 million Iraqi IDPs, compared to 3.6 million at the end of 2014. At least one million of these IDPs have been displaced since conflicts in the mid-2000s.

Displacement has increased even further following a government military offensive against the Islamic State in May with more than 85,000 Iraqis fleeing from the Iraqi city of Falluja and its surrounding areas. Approximately 60,000 of these fled over a period of just three days between 15 to 18 June.

Despite the figures, UNHCR continues to struggle to secure funding to meet the needs of Iraqis.

Halfway through the year, the agency has so far only received 21 percent of funds needed for Iraq and the surrounding region.

“Funds are desperately needed to expand the number of camps and to provide urgently needed relief supplies for displaced people who have already endured months of deprivation and hardship without enough food or medicine,” said UNHCR spokeswoman Ariane Rummery.

Though six camps have already been built and the construction of three more are underway, UNHCR estimates that 20 additional camps will be needed in the coming weeks.

In the Debaga camp in northern Iraq, newly displaced civilians are staying in a severely overcrowded reception centre which is currently seven times above its capacity.

Along with the lack of shelter, insufficient hygiene facilities and clean drinking water is creating a “desperate situation,” Rummery said.

And displacement may only get worse, she added.

“It is estimated that more than a million people still live in Mosul and any large offensive against the city could result in the displacement of up to 600,000 more people,” Rummery stated.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Iraq is classified as a level-three emergency, which signifies the most severe, large-scale humanitarian crisis.

A group of young Somali girls at the Ifo 2 Refugee Camp in Dadaab, Kenya, which is supported by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 8 2015 (IPS)

On the eve of World Population Day, the United Nations is fighting a virtually losing battle against growing humanitarian emergencies triggered mostly by military conflicts that are displacing people by the millions – and rendering them either homeless or reducing them to the status of refugees.

The number of forcibly displaced people has risen to a record number – almost 60 million at the end of 2014, according to the latest U.N. figures.“Governments and electorates are increasingly loath to accept large numbers of people who are in great need, ethnically different and may pose threats to social stability.” -- Joseph Chamie

But that number will continue to rise through 2015 – judging by the unprecedented number of refugees fleeing their home countries, and mostly crossing the Mediterranean Sea, seeking safe havens in European countries.

“Among these, most women and adolescent girls face particular threats as a result of the absence of health and other essential services that they need,” says U.N. Under-Secretary-General Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA).

“The complex emergencies we are responding to include protracted conflicts, made worse by poor or failed governance, the consequences of climate change, and the engagement of extremist groups claiming territory, resources and power,” he points out.

The theme of this year’s World Population Day – “Vulnerable Populations in Emergencies” – is aimed at highlighting the special needs of women and adolescent girls during conflicts and humanitarian disasters.

According to the United Nations, the number of people requiring critical relief has more than doubled since 2004, to over 100 million today, over and above the 60 million displaced people.

Current funding requirements for 2015 stand at a staggering 19.1 billion dollars compared with 3.4 billion dollars in 2004.

Joseph Chamie, former director of the United Nations Population Division, told IPS the focus of the 2015 World Population Day, which will be commemorated on July 11, is both timely and appropriate given that a record number of more than 60 million men, women and children have been displaced from their homes.

Although the current number of people displaced is at a record high, it will likely increase to substantially higher levels in the coming years as the political unrest and civil conflicts remain unresolved and become more widespread, he noted.

“The forced displacement of millions of men, women and children has created a humanitarian crisis that is challenging countries in every region of the world.”

Chamie said the many services needed by the vulnerable people, including food, shelter, clothing, health care, schooling and safety, are overwhelming the capacities of governments and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

Unfortunately, the international community has not been able to agree on a comprehensive solution to the crisis, he pointed out.

“Governments and electorates are increasingly loath to accept large numbers of people who are in great need, ethnically different and may pose threats to social stability.”

Chamie said economic uncertainties, record government deficits, high unemployment and concerns about national and cultural identity are contributing to growing anti-immigrant sentiment.

According to a report by the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) released last week, the large majority of the 137,000 people who crossed the Mediterranean Sea into Europe during the first half of this year were fleeing from war, conflict or persecution, making the Mediterranean crisis primarily a refugee one.

The report said one third of people arriving in Italy or Greece were from Syria, whose nationals are almost universally deemed to qualify for refugee status or other forms of protection.

The second and third most common countries of origin are Afghanistan and Eritrea, whose nationals are also mostly considered to qualify for refugee status.

There was an 83 per cent increase in refugees and migrants crossing the Mediterranean from January to June — 137,000 compared to 75,000 in the same period last year, according to UNHCR.

The number of deaths at sea rose to record levels in April of this year, when more than 1,300 people drowned or went missing in a single month, compared to 42 last April.

In a statement released here, UNFPA said women and adolescent girls who are caught up in humanitarian emergencies also face much greater risk of abuse, sexual exploitation, violence and forced marriage during conflicts and natural disasters.

In addition, many women who survive a crisis become heads of household, with the sole responsibility of caring for their children.

They often have to overcome immense obstacles to provide health and care for children, the sick, the injured and the elderly, and bear the heaviest burden of relief and reconstruction. As a result, they may neglect their own needs as they care for others, UNFPA said.

One of the priorities of UNFPA is to empower and safeguard the well-being of women, adolescent girls, and young people and address their specific needs and concerns.

“We work closely with governments, the United Nations system, local partners and others on disaster preparedness to ensure that reproductive health is integrated into emergency responses.”

“On this World Population Day, we call on the international community to redouble efforts to protect the health and rights of women and girls”, the agency said.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

Afghan migrants wait patiently for the smugglers who will take them to Iran. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

By Karlos Zurutuza
ZARANJ, Afghanistan, Sep 16 2014 (IPS)

“Of course I’m scared, but what else can I possibly do?” asks Ahmed, a middle-aged man seated on the carpeted floor of a hotel located on the southern edge of Afghanistan. He is bound for Iran, but he still has no idea when or how he’ll cross the border.

In his early 40s, Ahmed looks 15 years older than his real age. He says he has no means of feeding his seven children back in his hometown of Bamiyan, 130 km northwest of Kabul. Being illiterate poses yet another major hurdle to earning money and supporting his family.

“We’re all starving back home,” Ahmed tells IPS from his position on the floor where he will rest until the smugglers finally show up. It won’t be too long now, he says.

"We were going to Tehran but were caught in Iranshahr - 1,500 km southeast of the Persian capital. The police beat us with batons and cables, all over our bodies, before taking us back to the border by bus." -- Abdul Khalil, a 22-year-old Afghan migrant
“They never spend more than two days here,” notes Hassan, the innkeeper, who prefers not to disclose his full name. He is well versed in the details of Ahmed’s impending journey, since he is the one who mediates between his ‘guests’ and the smugglers who – for a sizeable fee – facilitate the trip across the border.

“They’ll be taken in the back of a pickup all the way down to Pakistan. From there they have to walk through the desert for a full day until they reach the Iranian border. Many don’t even make it there,” Hasan tells IPS.

Ahmed is just another customer at another one of many similar establishments scattered around Zaranj’s main square, 800 km southwest of Kabul. This is the capital of Afghanistan’s remote Nimruz province, the only one that shares borders with both Iran and Pakistan.

Also called ‘Map Square’, due to a giant map of Afghanistan hanging atop a huge pedestal, Zaranj is the last stop before a journey, which, in the best-case scenario, will be remembered as a nightmare.

Every day, thousands of Afghans put their lives in the hands of mafias that offer them an escape route from a country still in turmoil 13 years after the U.S. invasion in 2001.

In 2011, some 35 percent of Afghanistan’s population of 30.55 million people lived below the poverty line, a situation that has barely improved today. The official unemployment rate stood at seven percent that same year, but the International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that this number could be much higher.

Thus it comes as no surprise that Afghanistan is, after Syria and Russia, the source country for the largest number of asylum seekers worldwide.

A recent report by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) found that in 2013 alone, some 38,700 Afghans requested refugee status, accounting for 6.5 percent of the global total of asylum seekers.

Of the many destinations, Turkey remains by far the most popular, with 8,700 Afghan refugees requesting asylum last year.

Other industrialised countries like Sweden, Austria and Germany also attract a good share of Afghans in search of a better life, but the proximity of Iran, coupled with a shared language, makes it a far more sensible choice.

What many migrants find across the border, however, is a far cry from the warm embrace of a kindly neighbour.

Point “zero”

There are less than two kilometres between Map Square and the official border crossing with Iran. It’s obviously not the way out for Ahmed, but it might well be his route back.

Right next to the bridge over the Helmand River, the “no man’s land” between the two countries, lies “zero” point. It’s the place where all Afghans coming from the other side, either deported or on a voluntary basis, are told to register in.

At five in the evening, their number almost reaches 500.

Afghan migrants walk back home after being deported from Iran. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

“Only today we have registered 259 deportees and 211 who came voluntarily,” Mirwais Arab, team leader of the Directorate for Refugees and Returnees at the “zero” point, explains to IPS.

“Among all these we can only address the most immediate needs of 65; we give them food and shelter for the first night and a small amount of money so that they can go back home,” adds the government official.

Given the number restrictions, and the limited assistance available, the majority of migrants keep walking once they have registered in. This is not an occasional drip but a steady stream of exhausted men. The sense of defeat is overwhelming.

Many of them, like the Khalil brothers, aged 21 and 22, are very young. They tell IPS that they reached Iran six days ago, via Pakistan, after a long journey across the desert.

Like many others, they had to pay a high protection fee to a Taliban-affiliated group to ensure they could pass unharmed. Their return journey to Afghanistan was not much easier:

“We were going to Tehran but were caught in Iranshahr – 1,500 km southeast of the Persian capital. The police beat us with batons and cables, all over our bodies, before taking us back to the border by bus,” recalls Abdul, the elder of the two, speaking to IPS on the hard shoulder of the road at Zaranj’s southern entrance.

The Arifis’ story is even more dramatic. After reaching Zaranj from Kunduz, located on the northernmost edge of Afghanistan, they crossed the border illegally. They were five in all, but one of them, a seven-year-old, has not yet made it back.

Fifteen-year-old Ziaud furnishes IPS with the details of his family’s ordeal:

“When we were arrested by the Iranian police, they dragged my brother Mohammed and myself into one car, and my parents into another one. That’s when our little brother disappeared,” says the teenaged migrant.

“My father is going to try to go back today to get him,” he adds, still in a state of shock.

Najibullah Haideri, head of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Nimruz, tells IPS that Iran deports an average of 600 men and 200 families on a monthly basis.

Meanwhile, Ahmadullah Noorzai, head of the UNHCR office in Zaranj, tells IPS that the wave of deportations started six years ago.

In a report released in 2013, Human Rights Watch pointed out that Afghans, by far the largest expatriate population in Iran, are subjected to a host of abuses by both state and private actors, which violate Iran’s obligations under the 1951 Refugee Convention and endanger some one million Afghans recognised as refugees, as well as scores of others who have fled the war-torn country.

The NGO claimed that “thousands of Afghan nationals, who are in Iran’s prisons for crimes ranging from theft to murder and drug trafficking, are regularly denied the right to access lawyers.”

According to HRW, hundreds of Afghan migrants are believed to have been executed in recent years without any notification to Afghan consular officials.

“Getting a visa to Iran costs about 85,000 Afghanis (around 1,150 euros),” the manager of another hotel in Zaranj, who prefers to remain anonymous, explains to IPS.

“Prices for an illegal entry start at 25,000 (around 330 euros), but it always depends on the final destination. The most expensive are Tehran, Esfahan and Mashad – Iran’s largest cities. Migrants pay only when they reach their final destination so they’ll try again and again until they make it, or until they get killed,” adds the innkeeper.

Just behind him, Hamidullah, 43, and his son Sameem, 17, wait their turn to access a better life. Chances are, they’ll be back at this border crossing before too long.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Independence Square in Kiev. In the aftermath of the revolution Ukraine now faces a difficult path to EU integration. Credit: Natalia Kravchuk/IPS.

By Somar Wijayadasa
NEW YORK, Sep 4 2014 (IPS)

The crisis in Ukraine is a man-made disaster created by world leaders who have been trying to pull Ukraine apart – either towards Europe or Russia.

As geo-political tensions in the world rage unabated, world powers rush to impose sanctions that cause unintended consequences.

A Washington Post editorial, ‘The Snake Oil Diplomacy: When Tensions Rise, The US Peddles Sanctions’, published as far back as July 1998, stated, “No country in the world has employed sanctions as often as the United States has… it has imposed economic sanctions more than 110 times.”

Historically, the League of Nations, United Nations, United States and the European Union have resorted to mandatory sanctions as an enforcement tool when peace has been threatened and diplomatic efforts have failed.

“No country in the world has employed sanctions as often as the United States has… it has imposed economic sanctions more than 110 times.” -- Washington Post
During the 1990s, we witnessed a proliferation of sanctions imposed by the U.N. and U.S. against Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Liberia, Somalia, Cambodia, Haiti – to name a few.

These sanctions brought disastrous consequences – where those in power thrived and the poor suffered.

A few countries such as Iran, Iraq and North Korea scoffed at U.S. sanctions as they had resources or the will power to survive. Sanctions against China and India failed to change the leadership or hinder the country’s economic drive and growth.

But in most countries, especially Cuba, Iraq and Haiti, sanctions deteriorated their economic, social and healthcare systems.

At times, sanctions were used as an ulterior motive for “regime change” which is a violation of the U.N. Charter and the basic norms of international law.

Such a devious practice has nothing to do with protecting human rights, and promoting democracy and freedom.

Now, the sanctions against Russia – over the crisis in Ukraine – have boomeranged.

By April, “Maidan” protests ousted Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovytch. U.S. missiles near Russia and NATO’s efforts to expand into former Warsaw Pact countries angered Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia was blocked out of the G8.

The U.S. and the EU imposed sanctions on Russia when Crimea joined Russia after the Crimeans held a referendum to declare independence based on the right of nations to self-determination that is stipulated in Article 1 of the U.N. Charter.

The right to “self-determination” was applied when former Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia were divided, and when several small states like East Timor declared independence.

People in East Ukraine – 70 percent of who are ethnic Russians – felt violated when the Ukrainian Government decided to ban the Russian language from its official status.

They too invoked their right to self-determination and held a referendum to establish their own State.

The U.S. broadened sanctions when the Malaysian plane was downed in East Ukraine. No evidence surfaced from the black boxes, satellite images or OSCE inspectors’ revelations to prove culpability – unless it was a deliberate, pre-meditated act to blame a warring faction.

Also Western leaders claim that Russia provides weapons to the rebels in Ukraine. It may be true, but again the U.S. has not provided any evidence and Putin denies the charge. It’s like Iraq’s WMDs all over again.

More U.S. and EU sanctions against Russia froze the assets of Russians in power, banned their travel to EU countries, restricted Russian banks’ sales of debt or stocks in European markets, and targeted Russia’s defense, energy and financial sectors – to name a few.

On Aug. 7, in a radical response to Western sanctions, Russia retaliated by banning imports of beef, pork, poultry, fish, cheese, dairy products, fruit and vegetables from the European Union, United States, Australia, Canada, Norway, for one year.

Russia’s agriculture minister, Nikolai Fyodorov, said, “We now have the unique chance to improve our agricultural sector and make it more competitive.” He said that Russia has already identified other non-Western countries to import banned food items, and that he is confident that Russians will use locally available food.

From what we hear, European growth has slowed down; some countries creeping back into recession; U.S. investors have withdrawn over four billion dollars from Euro stocks; European farmers and Norway’s fishermen are affected and the EU has set aside 167 million dollars to compensate farmers for their loss of revenue; and companies that transport cargo to Russia have come to a halt.

While it is difficult to predict how this tit-for-tat will ultimately affect both Russian and Western economies, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that the sanctions have, in fact, harmed the West more than they have hurt Russia. He said, “In politics, this is called shooting oneself in the foot.”

Also the toll on human suffering is increasing. The U.N. claims that the war in Ukraine has already killed over 2,500 and injured nearly 5,000 people.

According to UNHCR, over 730,000 Eastern Ukrainians have fled to Russia. The Ukrainian government acknowledges that over 300,000 of its citizens are displaced inside Ukraine.

The U.N. Charter and international law provide for settling conflicts between states through negotiations based on mutual respect for each other’s independence, sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of the other.

This disaster can be resolved only if power-hungry world leaders renounce their arrogance and interventionism, and help Ukraine become a prosperous but neutral buffer nation between Western Europe and Russia. If not, the partition of Ukraine will be inevitable.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS-Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

In Sri Lanka’s poverty-stricken Northern Province, residents say they must stretch the few resources they have in order to survive. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

By Amantha Perera
ODDUSUDDAN, Sri Lanka, Aug 24 2014 (IPS)

In this dust bowl of a village deep inside Sri Lanka’s former conflict zone, locals will sometimes ask visitors to rub their palms on the ground and watch their skin immediately take on a dark bronze hue, proof of the fertility of the soil.

Village lore in Oddusuddan, located in the Mullaitivu district, some 338 km north of the capital Colombo, has it that the land is so fertile, anything will grow here. But Mashewari Vellupillai, a 53-year-old single mother, knows that rich farmland alone is not enough to ensure a viable future.

Thirty years of civil war in the Northern Province, where the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were defeated by government forces in May 2009, are not easily forgotten, and five years of peace have not yet resulted in prosperity for many residents in this former battleground.

“You have to do things on your own otherwise there will be no money." -- Velupillai Selvarathnam, a former lorry driver from Mullaitivu
Schemes to provide relief and employment opportunities for civilians and rehabilitated combatants are few and far between, and several villagers tell IPS that survival here is dependent on creative thinking to make the most of the few income generation options available.

At least 30 percent of the population in the province derives their income from agriculture or related areas, and a 10-month-old drought is wrecking havoc on farmers who tend to focus on a single crop at a time.

After taking a 50,000-rupee (384-dollar) financial hit following a failed harvest last year, Vellupillai has diversified the two-acre plot that surrounds her half-built house and planted everything from onions and bananas to cassava, aubergines and tobacco.

In addition, she has leased out her two acres of paddy land, and hires workers intermittently to see to its harvest.

Vellupilla’s most profitable crop is tobacco; a single, good-quality leaf fetches about 10 rupees (0.77 dollars), giving her an income of about 10,000 rupees (about 76 dollars) monthly.

“I can’t take a chance by depending on one source of income, I have to be sure that I have alternatives,” she tells IPS, citing cases of villagers here falling victim to a buyers’ market, as was the case in 2011 when most Oddusuddan residents grew aubergines and were forced to part with their yields for dirt cheap prices as buyers from Vavuniya Town, 60 km south, manipulated the market.

Over 400,000 people like Vellupillai have returned to the north after fleeing the last days of fighting between armed forces and the LTTE.

Since then, the government has poured over three billion dollars into massive infrastructure projects in the region, including rail-links, new roads and electrification schemes.

But despite such impressive figures, life in general remains hard. Poverty is rampant according to the latest government figures released for the first quarter of this year.

Four of the five districts that make up the province recorded rates higher than the national figure of 6.7 percent.

Three of them – Kilinochchi, Mannar and Mullaittivu – recorded poverty rates of 12.7 percent, 20.1 percent and 28.8 percent respectively, according to the latest government poverty head count released in April. Experts say this comes as no surprise, since these districts were hit hardest by the war, and are suffering the worst of its long-term impacts.

Unemployment also remains above national levels. There are no official figures for full unemployment rates in the Northern Province, but in the two districts where figures are available – Kilinochchi at 9.3 percent and Mannar at 8.1 percent – they were over twice the national rate of four percent.

Economists working in the region feel that unemployment could be as high 30 percent in some parts of the province.

A dearth of proper housing adds to the troubles of the north, with only 41,000 out of a required 143,000 houses being handed over to returning residents, while some 10,500 homes are still under construction.

According to UN Habitat, initial funding was for 83,000 units, including those already built, but no funds are available for the remaining 60,000 homes.

“Those who can make the situation work for them, or use what they have in them […] will fare better,” Sellamuththu Srinivasan, the additional district secretary for the Kilinochchi District, told IPS.

That is precisely what Velupillai Selvarathnam, a former lorry driver from Mullaitivu, has done.

Since the war’s end, he rents a small vehicle and commutes between Colombo and his hometown, covering a distance of over 300 km each week to bring ready-made garments from the capital to his small shop close to the town of Puthukkudiyiruppu.

“I can make a 25,000-rupee profit [about 192 dollars] every month,” he told IPS.

That is good money, especially if it is constant in a district that is one of the poorest five in the country and where the average monthly income is less than 4,000 rupees (about 30 dollars).

Selvarathnam, who has a deep scar on the side of his chest running down to his abdomen caused by a shell injury, tells IPS, “You have to do things on your own otherwise there will be no money.” His next aim is to travel to India to purchase garments in bulk, so that he can cut down on costs even more.

Like him, Velvarasa Sithadevi, another resident of Oddusudan has her hands full. She has to take care of a 25-year-old son who suffers from shellshock and a husband who is yet to recover from his wartime injuries.

When the family received a 25,000-rupee (192-dollar) grant from the U.N. Refugee Agency upon returning to their home village in 2011, Sithadevi invested the money in setting up a small shop. “We live in the back room, that is enough for us,” she told IPS.

Sithadevi is a good cook, and sells food products in her roadside shop. “It is a good business, especially when there are people working on roads and other construction [sites],” she stated, adding that she makes about 4,000 rupees (30 dollars) a day.

But for every single individual success story, there are thousands of others unable to break out of the suffocating cycle of poverty in the region.

Public official Srinivasan said that if assistance were to increase, the overall situation would improve. That, however, is unlikely to happen any time soon.

“The next option is to attract private sector investment […]. We are talking with companies in the south, there is some progress, but we need more companies to come in,” he stressed.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Agaichetou Toure fled Gao in March 2012 for Bamako. She is still waiting to return home. Credit: Marc-André Boisvert/IPS

By Marc-Andre Boisvert
BAMAKO, Jan 31 2014 (IPS)

In her traditional orange headdress, Agaichetou Toure sits quietly in a waiting room in Kalaban-Koura, a popular neighbourhood on the outskirts of Mali’s capital Bamako. 

It’s taken Toure almost two years to register as an internally displaced person (IDP) because until now she did not know that centres for this existed or that they provided aid for people like her. It was while running errands that she heard a crowd speaking about a new centre that had opened. So she came.Many IDPs fear returning ... Protection for locals is minimal. Basically, for now, populations are left by themselves." -- Almahady Cisse from Cri de Coeur

Toure fled Gao, the capital of Mali’s south-eastern Gao Region, the day after Islamists entered and took control of the city in March 2012. Along with her three children, she boarded a canoe and crossed the Niger River as the sound of rifle fire rung out in the background.

Her two older children crossed into neighbouring Niger and took refuge with an aunt. Toure and her eight-year-old daughter boarded a bus and travelled for four days to reach Bamako, about 1,200 kilometres south of Gao, to take refuge with her brother.

Difficult Living Conditions

Almost two years later, their living conditions remain difficult as they stay with Toure’s brother, his two wives and eight children in his two-bedroom home. The sleeping arrangements aren’t any better. Each night, depending on which wife her brother sleeps with, Toure has to sleep in a different bedroom.

“I am stuck in Bamako. I don’t like it. But I have to [stay],” says the 42-year-old who is one of eight women waiting to be registered at this IDP centre. Toure’s home city of Gao was targeted by rocket attacks last week.

It has been a year since this West African nation’s government took back control of its north, and six months after peaceful elections were held here.

In January 2012, a Tuareg rebellion triggered a series of events that lead to the fall of almost two-thirds of Mali’s territory. The Tuareg rebels were soon ousted by Islamist movements, several of which are linked to Al Qaeda. But military intervention from French, and later African, troops, liberated the north in January 2013 and led to elections here in July of that year.

But hundreds of thousands of displaced persons and refugees have still not returned to their homes.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Mali says that, as of January, there are 217,811 displaced persons, mostly in the southern part of the country and in Bamako. It is a reduction from the 353,455 IDPs recorded in June 2013. In addition, about 167,000 refugees remain in camps in neighbouring countries.

In a spartan, but brand new office in Kalaban-Koura, Mahamane Allassa Assofaré sees about 20 IDPs a day who wish to be registered. This office is one of the five centres run by the Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development (ACTED) in collaboration with the IOM.

Assofaré documents the story of each IDP who comes through the doors. It’s the first step in helping them receive aid, basic services, professional training, cash transfers and maternal care.

“They face a lot of problems. The cost of living is much more expensive in Bamako than where they are from. There are issues with health, food, housing,” Assofaré tells IPS while handing a questionnaire to an IDP.

IOM estimates that around 57 percent of the 353,455 IDPs registered in June 2013 have now returned to their homes, 78 percent of whom say that the improved security situation motivated their return.

Niamoye Alidji is an IDP whom IPS met two years ago. She was one of the first people to return to her home in Timbuktu, a town on the list of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s (UNESCO) world heritage sites, in northern Mali. And she is happy that she did.

“People are slowly coming back. Shops are reopening. School is starting. In Timbuktu, things are getting much better. We are safe,” she tells IPS over the phone.

There’s Nothing To Go Back To

If Timbuktu has been pacified, several regions are far from secure. The city of Gao was targeted by rocket attacks last week. This week, it was the turn of Kidal, a city in northern Mali. In those areas, the security situation still remains fragile.

“Our position is that we do not encourage massive returns,” Olivier Beer, from the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR), tells IPS. “Safety does not explain it all.”

He says that the humanitarian conditions of the refugees and the absence of state facilities are reasons not to support mass repatriation.

Almahady Cisse from Cri de Coeur, a Malian collective that was created to support the victims of the humanitarian crisis in the north, agrees.

“There is a lack of accompaniment measures. Many IDPs fear returning, especially civil servants, which delays state support. Few schools have reopened. There are still limited health facilities. Protection for locals is minimal. Basically, for now, populations are left by themselves,” Cisse tells IPS.

Abdoulaye Haidara, 50, from a village close to Bourem, a town in Goa Region, has been living in Bamako for almost two years. He is reluctant to return home.

“I talk to my family in Bourem. It seems better. I would like to go back, but there is nothing left there. Everything I had has disappeared. And I have no way of feeding my four kids there. It serves no purpose to go back,” he tells IPS.

Assofané says that because of the lack of services and facilities in the north, many IDPs who went home after the violence, are returning to Bamako.

“They lost everything in the pillage, and the economy is quite bad,” explains Assofané.

And there remains a stream of newly displaced IDPs moving to Mali’s south.

Situation is Fragile 

The IDP situation here is fragile.

“We have done an in-depth investigation and the IDP situation has lead to a slow precariousness of host families,” Nicolas Robe, country director for ACTED, tells IPS.

Several IDPs have moved in with their extended families, burdening many of these households. The situation is becoming unbearable for some and several households have reached out for aid.

The IOM estimates that many IDPs will need food assistance to return home. About 800,000 people need immediate food assistance and about three million of the country’s 14.8 million people are at risk of lacking food in the next three months.

It is no wonder that Cisse from Cri de Coeur believes it is a good thing that IDPs are not forced to return home.

“A return should not be premature. Someone that has lost everything needs support. They need time to organise for the best return possible. And so far, we are still in this process.”

A man walks by the police checkpoint in Gundik Shalal in northeast Syria. The war in Syria has increased the number of refugees seeking refuge in Europe. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS.

By Apostolis Fotiadis
ATHENS, Sep 20 2013 (IPS)

While the relentless war in Syria continuously adds to the number of refugees travelling west to Europe, Greece is fast becoming a nation they are choosing to avoid.

The majority of Syrians, and also others fleeing their countries, are now trying to reach northern Europe through other routes. And the tough Balkans is emerging as one such alternative.

With more migrants than it can handle and the enduring economic crisis turning locals xenophobic, Greece launched an operation to shield its borders in the spring of 2012. Meanwhile, irregular immigrants as they are termed, have been put en masse in detention centres while police atrocities and human rights abuses have been exposed in recent months.“The western Balkan route has seen an increase of 300 percent since the beginning of the year." -- Isabella Cooper, spokesperson for Frontex, the European Union agency for external border security

Considered by many as the last possible path to northern Europe, it is a trip full of horrors, says Hasam Nazari, a 25-year-old gifted musician from Afghanistan. He is among those to have taken the illegal route several times, after spending 18 months in Greece.

Nazari’s aim has been to get north to Hungary and from there to Austria. He has attempted to do so on five occasions now before running out of money and returning to Greece.

“We saw a 13-year-old being raped by a mafia gang after crossing the border into Fyrom (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia),” he tells IPS. “If you do not have euros to give them, they maim you.”

They wait at the region beyond the border, Nazari says, near abandoned houses on the way to the interior. “They ride bikes, around 10 or 12 of them, and have guns,” he adds.

Looting people is common. “They take you into the forest, strip you naked and steal everything valuable you have,” says Nazari. “You are lucky if they don’t beat you up as well.”

The police know what is happening. “We were beaten up in front of them and they looked the other way,” says Nazari. They are concerned more with treating the arriving refugees and illegal migrants with a heavy hand, he adds.

The trend of migrants and refugees taking the Balkan route has started showing up in statistics beginning 2013, says Isabella Cooper, spokesperson for Frontex, the European Union agency for external border security.

“The western Balkan route has seen an increase of 300 percent since the beginning of the year,” she tells IPS.

Bulgaria has seen the largest increase, with the influx of people coming in from Syria, Algeria, Iraq and Pakistan increasing sixfold, she adds.

“Some 60 to 70 people, sometimes even a 100, have been crossing the border every day since the beginning of 2013,” says Cooper.

“We have seen a shift to the east along the border,” acknowledges Boris Cheshirkov of the public information unit of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Bulgaria. “Now the biggest groups cross over through the thick forests of the Strandzha Mountains [to the country’s southeast border with Turkey]. It is extremely difficult terrain with very poor visibility.”

Smugglers have cottoned on to these new routes already and started asking desperate immigrants for more money to lead them to the border. If they were asking for 500 euros (670 dollars) per immigrant earlier to take them to the Turkish-Greek border along the river Evros, their rates now have gone up to nearly 3,500 euros (4,700 dollars).

Despite that, says Cheshirkov, “the smugglers take the groups just close to the border, they don’t cross with them, or guide them.”

He cites the example of Uaheyda Noor, a Syrian refugee now serving time at a prison in Silven, a city 130 km from the border with Greece and Turkey.

“The 35-year-old mother of four arrived in Bulgaria with her husband Abdul Hanan Noor, 38, in December 2012,” Cheshirkov tells IPS.

The family was accommodated at the refugee centre in the border city of Pastrogor. However, in January, Noor attempted to leave Bulgaria for Serbia with a daughter and son. She was stopped by the border police, sentenced to eight months in prison and has been in Silven since February.

“She was due for release in August, but hasn’t been as far as I know,” says Cheshirkov.

“Thirty asylum seekers are held in Sofia’s Central Prison,” he adds.

Serbia too is reeling under a rising migrant influx. From the 2,000 irregular migrants that came into the country in 2010, the number went up to 9,500 by 2011 and to 15,000 the following year, according to the Serbian Centre for Migration set up by non-governmental organisation Grupa 484. Another 20,000 are estimated to have crossed into the country this year.

However, Nenad Banovic, the Chief of Border Police in Serbia, says:  “We have seen a small reduction in arrivals in the first six months of 2013.” He attributes this to the opening up of the Turkey-Bulgaria-Romania route as well as the Greece-Fyrom-Kosovo-Montenegro-Bosnia-Croatia one.

But like in Greece, the pressure of immigrants is beginning to tell on the asylum facilities of Bulgaria and Serbia too.

All three of Bulgaria’s refugee centres – one in capital Sofia, and two closer to the Turkish border at Banya and Pastrogor – are operating above their 1,170-people capacity.

Two weeks ago, the Bulgarian government dedicated half-a-million Bulgarian lev (340,000 dollars) to arrange accommodation for another 500 people.

The Serbian system is also trying to cope with the influx of refugees.

“We are struggling to provide for them,” says Banovic, “but Serbia has limited resources and no help from Europe.”

The difficulties do not deter migrants from heading for the border city of Subotica 184 km north of Belgrade, says Nazari, the Afghan musician. Many families reside in an old brick factory in the city. Others stay in the forest adjoining the city until they can try their luck at the Hungarian border a few kilometres north.

Most of them get caught while trying to cross and sent back. “Most of these returns are unofficial but occasionally some are sent back formally,” says Mirolava Jelacic, a legal analyst at Grupa 484.

However, those who do make it across continue to inspire others to keep coming back.

Gabriel Seltoc trekked for three weeks, barefoot, from the DRC after soldiers started shooting inside his house. He fled wearing his precious seven-year-old cowboy hat, a navy jacket, beige t-shirt, and brown trousers, which he bought at a market four years ago. Courtesy: UNHCR/Lucy Beck

By Amy Fallon
RWAMWANJA REFUGEE CAMP, Uganda, Jul 1 2013 (IPS)

If you were forced to flee your home to survive, what would you take? What could you take? Jean Claude “Van Damme” Ndongizimana, 20, escaped from the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo with just the bag in which he kept his profits from selling milk and the clothes on his back.

He was forced to flee after M23 rebels fighting government troops attacked his village and attempted to recruit him two months ago. He eventually found his way to the Rwamwanja refugee camp in Kamwenge district, southwestern Uganda, which is currently home to more than 40,000 Congolese refugees.

The youth is one of nine refugees featured in a new photography exhibition being run by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR). The photos show the refugees and the possessions they took with them when they fled their homes.

In his photo Ndongizimana sits on the grass with his black bag around his neck. In another shot, Florence Mukeshimana, 30, poses with her five young children and the old saucepan she grabbed before fleeing her home after her husband was blown up by a landmine. “When I found out my husband was dead I lost hope and decided to leave the country,” Mukeshimana says.

The images were unveiled over a week ago and will go on display at the Mish Mash Restaurant and Art Gallery in Kampala on Jul. 2.  The exhibition will run for three weeks and hopes to draw attention to the thousands of people around the globe forced to escape war or persecution every day.“After 20 years of fighting, a latent fatigue with the unceasing plight of eastern Congo means there is not enough funding to meet the needs of more than 900,000 people living in camps in North Kivu.” -- Oxfam International’s Humanitarian programme coordinator for the DRC, Tariq Rieb.

During his interview with IPS, Ndongizimana wears a blue raincoat, oversized brown trousers, and lace up sneakers with tattered soles – the ones he was wearing when he left his country two months ago.  His beloved plaid cap rests on his head and displays a sticker of Arsenal football player Bacary Sagna, acquired from a chewing gum packet after Ndongizimana crossed the border into neighbouring Uganda.

“I love football here,” Ndongizimana, who has been known to kick a ball around Rwamwanja, tells IPS.

According to UNHCR, the security situation in eastern DRC has been precarious since July 2011, causing regular influxes of refugees into Uganda.

Fresh fighting between M23, an armed group started by former Tutsi soldiers who mutinied in April 2012, the DRC army, and other local armed groups, has uprooted thousands more. According to the UNHCR, almost 70,000 people were forced to flee to neighbouring Uganda, and some 2.2 million were displaced internally. Rwamwanja was reopened in 2012 by Uganda to accommodate new arrivals.

In May, hundreds of Congolese crossed the border to avoid being forcibly conscripted into M23’s ranks, according to the UNHCR. It took Ndongizimana three weeks to make the journey.

“We would run, we would sleep somewhere. We would run again, and then it rained on us. We would sleep somewhere, we would wake up. Our clothes were torn,” he says, describing the journey.

Ndongizimana now fears the worst about his parents and siblings back home and says he wants to stay in Uganda.

“If I can learn how to box, I can support myself in the future,” he says. “I will only go home if we have peace.”

Last month South Africa began deploying troops to Goma, a city in eastern DRC, to reinforce the Tanzanian and Malawian contingent that will form the U.N. Intervention Brigade. On Mar. 28, the U.N. Security Council resolved to move its presence in the DRC from a stabilisation and peace-keeping force to an intervention one. The 3,000-strong force should be fully operational by the middle of July.

“The situation will certainly evolve once the brigade is fully operational,” head of the UNHCR office in Goma, Kouassi Lazare Etien, tells IPS.

“If the brigade intervenes against M23 we can expect a deterioration of the security situation in the Masisi and Rutshuru territories (in North Kivu province), which could lead to further population movements towards Uganda.”

As World Refugee Day was being celebrated in Rwamwanja on Jun. 20, the DRC’s government deployed hundreds of soldiers and tanks along the frontier with M23, indicating they may want to attack rebel positions.

Peace talks have been unsuccessfully staged in Kampala, under the auspices of the chairperson of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.

“If they fail to reach an agreement and in case the intervention brigade launches attacks against the armed groups, especially M23, one can expect a huge influx of population into Uganda,” says Etien.

Oxfam International’s Humanitarian programme coordinator for the DRC, Tariq Riebl, tells IPS that fighting across several North Kivu territories is forcing people from their homes every week, and the ongoing violence often makes it difficult for agencies to reach those in need.

“After 20 years of fighting, a latent fatigue with the unceasing plight of eastern Congo means there is not enough funding to meet the needs of more than 900,000 people living in camps in North Kivu,” he says.

“People urgently need security and protection, as well as access to basic needs, including clean water, health services, shelter and food.”

Gabriel Seltoc trekked for three weeks, barefoot, from the DRC after soldiers started shooting inside his house. The 75-year-old, who is also featured in the exhibition, made a living back home as a traditional dancer.

Seltoc began the journey to Uganda with his wife and two children, but was separated from them along the way. Now he spends his days alone. He fled the DRC wearing his precious seven-year-old cowboy hat, a navy jacket, beige t-shirt, and brown trousers, which he bought at a market four years ago. He is featured in the exhibition in his cowboy hat.

“The war started when I was putting on these clothes one day,” says Seltoc. “They took all my things. They took my clothes, my cows, my house. Nothing is there. I can’t go back. For what? I have nothing to start (rebuilding with).”

Many refugees return to Afghanistan only to cross back over the border into neighbouring Pakistan a few months later. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Pakistan , Jun 27 2013 (IPS)

Muhammad Shakoor, 42, calls Pakistan home.

Born in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province, he was bundled across the border during the Soviet invasion of his country in 1979 by his family fleeing the chaos of war.

The mountainous terrain of Peshawar, capital of Pakistan’s northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, is all he knows. Over the past three decades he has built a humble life here, and now sells vegetables in the city centre.

But his world could soon be turned upside down, if the Pakistan government sticks to its Jun. 30 deadline for repatriating some 1.6 million Afghan refugees who have put out roots in Pakistan’s soil.

For years the government has been extending the deadline for allowing undocumented immigrants to remain in the country, but pressure from an increasingly disgruntled local population fed up with sharing limited resources with tens of thousands of refugees is finally winning out.

For Shakoor, going back across the border is simply not an option.

“I have three children who study in a local school,” he told IPS. “Going back means I will be depriving them of an education.”

He also lamented that a lack of basic services like electricity and water, coupled with a dearth of business opportunities and healthcare in Afghanistan, makes the idea of return a bleak one.

But he might not have a choice.

“The government will take action against illegal Afghans because they are involved in crimes,” Jahangir Khan, a local police offer in Peshawar, tells IPS.

He claims that last year Afghan refugees were involved in 51 percent of the crimes committed in KP, which hosts a million of the 1.6 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan.

Because they are not registered in the system, they are able to get away with crimes like murder and robbery, he charged. “We are recommending that the government send them back as soon as possible.”

His words echo a Sept. 19, 2012 ruling by Peshawar High Court (PHC) Chief Justice Dost Muhammad Khan that the federal government takes all necessary measures to ensure repatriation of undocumented refugees by Dec. 31 of that year.

Khan cited a declining climate of “law and order” as a result of a huge, unauthorised population living and working throughout Pakistan, and referred to the peace process underway in Afghanistan as further grounds for return.

The chief justice also claimed that “unlawful” Afghan business owners were not paying taxes to the local government.

Though the ruling was eventually overturned by order of the Supreme Court, the PHC directive fanned the flames of intolerance among many locals in Peshawar and prompted KP Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Dr. Yousaf Sarwar to point out that so-called unlawful enterprises are putting a strain on KP’s infrastructure and fragile economy.

Such charges turned a hostile spotlight on small business owners who have so far managed to escape scrutiny.

One such entrepreneur, 57-year-old Muhammad Rafi, is now feeling the heat of those impatient for him to leave.

The cloth merchant says he is willing to return, but claims his two sons, both in their early 20s, cannot fathom abandoning their home and moving to a strange land that they have never set foot in.

“They were both born here and are completing their engineering degrees – they have dreams of eventually working in the UK, or some other European country, but not in Afghanistan,” he told IPS.

Jacques Franquin, head of the United Nations Refugee Agency’s (UNHCR) sub-office in Peshawar, says he and his team are working with the government to grant refugees another extension based on the “principles outlined in the Strategic Solutions for Afghan Refugees (SSAR).”

Formulated at a recent conference in Geneva, the strategy “seeks to encourage voluntary repatriation in the fulfillment of the 1951 Refugee Convention,” Franquin said, which underlines the importance of building financial, human, social, physical, and natural assets to empower refugees, and generating sustainable livelihoods for returnees based on access to social services.

Most times, he added, refugees don’t leave their homes out of choice but out of desperation, in a last bid to survive.

He praised the government of Pakistan and the local population for extending hospitality to the refugees and asylum seekers, and applauded the courage shown by Afghan refugees, who have endured three decades of hardship.

The Refugee Agency has been offering each person a 150-dollar incentive package to return home. This programme has yielded some results, with 83,000 Afghans returning to their country last year and 19,000 departing Pakistan in the first six months of 2013.

But these numbers do not tell the whole story. An inefficient security system along the 2,400-km border between the two countries means that thousands of refugees simply cross back into Pakistan each month, again without valid documents, an official speaking under condition of anonymity told IPS.

Experts believe an unstable political situation in Afghanistan, which is preparing for the 2014 withdrawal of NATO troops and a presidential election that will determine the future of the war-torn country, makes northern Pakistan an inevitable destination of thousands for several months to come.

According to a U.N. report, about nine million people, or roughly 36 percent of the population in Afghanistan, live below the poverty line.

Inflation continues to hover at nine percent and very little progress has been made to facilitate private sector development or investment in infrastructure projects that will boost employment.

“Up to 60 percent of returnees are experiencing difficulties rebuilding their lives,” the report stated. “Large numbers of Afghans continue to migrate to cities inside Afghanistan or to neighbouring countries seeking livelihood opportunities.”

A government official who did not wish to be named told IPS that in light of such harsh ground realities, Pakistan’s newly elected federal government will have no choice but to extend refugees’ stay.