Children play in front of Eliécer Baron’s home in Cartagena. The community leader organized neighbours to build a school for displaced children and they are now looking for computers to equip it.
A preview of the Colombian photos in the exhibit is available on UNHCR’s flickr pages
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The annual “Dialogue” meeting at UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees), 9-10 December, focuses on the relatively new phenomenon of urban refugees. The high-level meetings were accompanied by the opening of a photo exhibit at the United Nations building in Geneva Wednesday evening. “A struggle for rights”, by Geneva-based photographer Zalmai, shows some of the people, urban refugees, who often live unnoticed by their neighbours in three cities in three countries: Colombia, Malaysia, and South Africa.
The exhibit is open to the public.
The photographs were shot during five months, and show the stark reality, in black and white, of refugees and displaced persons in three cities not immediately associated with massive dislocations of people. Zalmai spent time among the internally displaced in Cartagena, on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, already poor country people who were uprooted by the simmering conflict over the drugs trade in the country.
In South Africa, the photographer depicts the plight of the human flotsam from three or four countries of Africa who have sought refuge in the country in recent years, the most recent being refugees from Zimbabwe fleeing that country’s economic implosion and ongoing violence.
A UN official in charge of investigating charges of torture who was invited to Zimbabwe is on his way to Johannesburg, South Africa Thursday 29 October after being denied entry to the country at the airport in Harare. Manfred Nowak, the UN’s special rapporteur on torture, told reporters that his invitation had been rescinded by the Zimbabwean ministry of foreign affairs when he arrived in Harare late Wednesday evening 28 October. Immigration officials would not let him into the country despite an invitation from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.
The government of Zimbabwe has been split since Tsvangirai walked out two weeks ago, complaining of a concerted campaign of violence by President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF supporters against Tsvangirai’s MDC party members. A team from the regional grouping Southern Africa Development Community was expected in Harare to mediate the political crisis Thursday. AP,BBC
