Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) is taking the unusual step of providing an internal loan to cover the operational needs of one of its programmes, in Yemen. “Faced with an acute funding shortfall for its Yemen operation, UNHCR has approved an internal loan amounting to US$ 4.7 million in order to continue programmes for hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs) in this country until mid-year,” the organization said Wednesday 24 February.
UNHCR says that to date it has received less than 10 percent of the funds needed for its work in the region: registering and monitoring the situation of 250,000 IDPs and addressing their humanitarian needs. The north of Yemen has been the scene of seven months of conflict between the government and Al Houti movement. IDPs are waiting to see if a ceasefire holds, the Geneva-based group reports, but roads and villages are littered with landmines, making return unsafe.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Nearly 200,000 Iraqis who live outside their country as displaced persons, but in the region, could have help from the UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) to vote in upcoming elections. The Geneva-based organization has told the Iraqi Election Commission (IHEC), in response to a demand it made, that the UNHCR “stands ready to facilitate the participation of Iraqi refugees living in the countries neighbouring Iraq.”
The UNHCR will work with the government to provide demographic data on the registered Iraqis, inform them of their rights for the elections, and provide logistical support. The organization calls the 7 March elections “a major opportunity to consolidate national reconciliation.”
A doctor examines a Somali patient in Ethiopia © UNHCR/F.Courbet
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Health care delivery to populations displaced by conflict is outdated, according to an article in the British medical journal The Lancet, co-authored by UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) health expert, Paul Spiegel. The authors note that the stereotypical refugee population living in closed camps, mostly young and in low-income countries, is a thing of the past.
Today’s conflict-affected populations are often older, from middle-income countries and located in urban settings or dispersed in rural settings.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Thailand began at dawn Monday the forcible return of some 4,000 Lao Hmong refugees to the Lao People’s Democratic Republic from two camps in northern and northeast Thailand, prompting a swift, highly critical response from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres. Security personnel loaded Lao Hmong onto trucks for the journey back, according to Guterres. “UNHCR did not have access to the site, and has not been allowed to assess the international protection needs of those living there.”
Corrections 14:05 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) has denounced Cambodia’s forced return to China of 20 ethnic Uighur asylum-seekers before their claims were heard. The Geneva-based organization said it was “deeply distressed” at the news and concerned that “a disturbing pattern of such cases is increasingly evident around the world.”
Human rights groups condemn deportation
The 20 were deported Saturday 19 December as illegal immirants, reports Reuters AlertNet, an information service for humanitarian organizations. The move coincides with a trade visit to Cambodia by Chinese Vice-president Xi Jinping 21 December. Reuters AlertNet quotes a faxed statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry, received by Reuters: “Recently, Cambodia deported 20 Chinese citizens in accordance with immigration laws for illegal entry into Cambodia. China received these people in accordance with usual practices,” but the statement also links the immigration crime to smuggling.
Several human rights groups have condemned the deportations, and US State Department’s spokesman Gordon Duguid says the US is “deeply disturbed” by the decision and the lack of appropriate participation by the UNHCR which, he warns, will affect its relations with Cambodia.”Now that the group has been returned to China,” says Duguid, “we urge the government of China to uphold international norms and to ensure transparency, due process and proper treatment of persons in its territory.”
Albert, 22, holding his one-month-old daughter, Adriana, wanted to be a physician, but had to start working at a construction site because his mother needed medical care as a result of the displacement (photo: ©2009 Zalmai/UNHCR).
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Half of the world’s 10.5 million official refugees now live in cities, according to the United Nation’s High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), António Guterres. And twice as many internally displaced persons and “returnees” who have come home from abroad following conflicts, are living in urban areas. Guterres’s statement was made ahead of the 9 December UNHCR annual meeting called the High Commissioner’s Dialogue, which this year will focus on “protection challenges in the context of urbanization.” The meeting is designed to underscore that while the rest of the world tends to think of refugees in terms of camps, the reality for many is very different.
The movement to cities of refugees and people displaced internally by conflict is in parallel with a general movement towards urban areas throughout the world, but it puts added strains on resources that are often already in short supply. Most live in overcrowded shantytowns with little or no health care or social services, the UNHCR says its experience on the ground shows. They are often reluctant to register and try to remain invisible for fear of deportation, and they get by as part of the informal economy, which leaves them open to exploitation, the Geneva-based organization says.
Victim of earlier xenophobic violence in S. Africa © 2008 UNHCR / J. Oatway
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has condemned the recent spate of attacks on refugees and asylum-seekers, many of them from Zimbabwe, in the Western Cape town of De Doorns, South Africa. Local officials and the South African Red Cross moved quickly to supply some 3,000 displaced people with tents, portable toilets and hot meals. It was sending two officials from its Pretoria office to assist local officials to restore order, UNHCR said 20 November.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A group of Lao Hmong refugees who were rounded up in Bangkok in November 2006 to be deported are still being held in detention, in two cells at an immigration detention centre in Nong Khai, Thailand. The UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) demanded Tuesday 17 November that Thailand release the group, which was part of a larger pool of internationally recognized refugees. Four countries have offered to re-settle them.
The UNHCR in Geneva recalls the background to their detention:
“Many of the Hmong living in the highlands of Laos took part in the war that engulfed Laos in the 1960s and 1970s. When the Pathet Lao came to
power in 1975, many tens of thousands of Lao Hmong fled to Thailand seeking asylum, and large numbers were resettled in Western countries,
mostly in the United States.
“The situation of the Hmong today is very different from what it was inthe 1970s, but the Nong Khai group are part of the legacy left by a
troubled past. Originally 147 refugees, they were rounded up for deportation and transferred on 08 December 2006 to the Nong Khai immigration
detention centre on the Mekong River border with Laos where they have been held since. With babies born in detention, the number now stands at 158.”
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The cost of providing humanitarian aid is growing, with the number and intensity of crises increasing, maintaining at a high level the number of refugees who cannot return home. António Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for refugees, told the annual meeting of the UNHCR in Geneva Monday 28 September at its opening session that the organization is faced with a 50 percent increase in its global workload, while the staff at the Geneva office has been reduced by 30 percent.
Edward M Kennedy visiting Bengali refugee camps in Kolkata in India in 1971. Image: AFP PHOTO/AFP/Getty Images
Edward M Kennedy speaks to a meeting of student leaders in 1966 - he called for participation in humanitarian relief programmes in South Vietnam. Image: AP Photo/Bob Daugherty
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Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The 2009 Fridtjof Nansen award will go to the late US Senator Edward Kennedy in recognition of his work in favour of refugees and asylum-seekers, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) announced 15 September. The ceremony takes place in the US, in Washington, DC 28 October.
Antonio Guterres, High Commissioner for Refugees, said in the announcement, “Kennedy stood out as a forceful advocate for those who suddenly found themselves with no voice and no rights. Year after year, conflict after conflict, he put the plight of refugees on the agenda and drove through policies that saved and shaped countless lives.” He noted that Kennedy’s work for refugees was not limited to the US and that most recently he had fought to draw attention to the needs of Iraqi refugees.
He added that Kennedy was informed of the Nansen committee’s decision in June before he died.
Senator Edward Kennedy, center left, has a smile and a handshake for an unidentified young refugee in the Tuki-Baab famine refugee camp during a visit, Tuesday, Dec. 27, 1984, Tuki-Baab, Eastern Sudan. Many of the refugees had walked for a week to reach the camp from Eritrea. Kennedy toured a number of refugee camps in the African drought area over Christmas week. The woman on the left is unidentified. Image: AP Photo/Robert Dear
Africa now has one billion people, according to a report jointly released by Population Reference Bureau, a Washington-based non-profit organization, and USAid, the US government aid agency. The population growth is occurring mainly in sub-Saharan Africa where women tend to have more children than elsewhere in the world: 5.3 on average versus 2.6 worldwide. But Africa overall is currently the continent with the world’s fastest growth rate and fastest projected rate to 2050. Among the many details the report provides on the population, its notes that while Africa has one-seventh of the world’s population, it has one-quarter of the world’s refugees. AllAfrica, “2009 World Population Data Sheet” report and world population clock, data
London, England and Beijing, China (GenevaLunch) – England made a great start to the second test, winning the toss and putting on 196 runs before the first wicket fell. Australia then fought back and destroyed the English middle order, only captain Andrew Strauss maintaining resistance with an unbeaten 161 runs. England ended on 364-6, a respectable score but nowhere near what could have been achieved. Details, Guardian
Meanwhile Beijing witnessed a rather different game of cricket between expats and refugees, reports UNHCR in Geneva, the UN refugee organization.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) in Geneva has asked the Italian government for an explanation of how refugees who are returned to Libya are handled, following an incident that took place 1 July in the Mediterranean, about 30 km from the island of Lampedusa.
The Italian Navy intercepted a group of 82 people, 76 of them Eritreans, who were heading to Italy from Libya. The Italian ship transferred them to a Libyan ship, and they were returned to Libya and placed in detention. The UNHCR says that given the seriousness of allegations of mistreatment by Italian personnel during the transfer, Italy is being asked to respect international norms.
The New York Times takes an in-depth look at young men from Minnesota who left Somalia as small children and became refugees in the US, but who are now returning to their homeland to answer calls for a new Jihad. The newspaper says the reasons behind their departure are a mix of frustration, political awakening and faith, but they have joined Shabaab, a militant Islamist group with links to Al Qaeda and “the students are among more than 20 young Americans who are the focus of what may be the most significant domestic terrorism investigation since September 11.” Minnpost ran an article in March about the mosque in Minneapolis which had become a focus of attention for the Federal Bureau of Investigations, among other governent agencies.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Antonio Guterres 11 May announced that his organization is chartering a Boeing 747 to transport emergency items to Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province, at a cost of $584,000. Much more will be needed, he noted in an appeal to the international community for financial assistance and solidarity to help hundreds of thousands of Pakistani civilians displaced by recent heavy fighting in the region.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) has registered more than 45,000 new internally displaced persons (IDPs) over the past four days at 12 new registration points in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province, the organization announced 7 May. It is setting up new camps in Mardan and Swabi districts, south of the conflict area in the Swat valley, to house people fleeing a surge in the fighting between govenment forces and Taliban militants. Up to 500,000 civilians may be affected by the conflict.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) reports that 35 people drowned Wednesday off the coast of Yemen’s Abyan region in the Gulf of Aden, after one of two smugglers’ boats capsized. Some 220 people were making the passage from near Bossasso in Somalia, with 117 people on the boat that overturned.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – John Solecki, the head of the UNHCR office in Quetta, Pakistan, taken hostage in January 2009, has been released by his kidnappers some 50 km south of Quetta, in Khadkhutcha, Balochistan. Solecki, 49, was abducted 2 February as he and his UN refugee agency driver Syed Hashim drove to work. Hashim was killed.
Increasing conflicts in the northwest Central African Republic (CAR) has forced nearly 24,000 people to leave their homes and seek refuge in the bush or neighbouring Chad. Refugees and internally displaced persons began returning to their homes in 2008 when rebel groups and the government signed peace agreements. A new rebel group known as the Convention of Patriots for Justice and Peace is at the root of the renewed violence, reports AllAfrica.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) will begin a voluntary repatriations of Afghans who are registered with them, from Pakistan to Afghanistan, in April.
Title: Lecture: The Iraqui Refugees After the 2003 Invasion: A New Crisis in the Middle East
Location: Geneva
Link out: Click here
Description: Joseph Sassoon, Senior Associate Member at St Antony’s College, Oxford; Visiting Scholar at Georgetown University, Washington DC. Entrance is free but registration in required.
Date: 09 Mar 2009
Somali refugee: many children growing up in camps in Ethiopia, such as this girl in 2005, had never seen their homeland
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Mogadishu is the scene of both some of the heaviest recent fighting in Somalia, and the place where an estimated 40,000 internally displaced refugees are returning home, reports the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), resulting in heavy civilian casualties and renewed displacement.
Flying past the Saleve
Geneva, Switzerland (Le Temps, Fre) – International security police at Cointrin Airport in Geneva are being investigated for using violence against two refugees who were being escorted to planes to leave the country, at the end of January and early in February. One was from DR Congo, being sent home from Zug and the other man, from Jordan or Irak, was being forced to leave by canton Vaud. Both refused and ended up with bruises and other injuries.
Chances are: 20.8% are foreigners
Neuchatel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland’s resident foreign population continued to grow in 2008, but the makeup of it shifted, a reflection of stronger ties with the European Union (EU). The total foreign population was 1.64 million on 31 December 2008, of which 1.03m came from the EU and Efta (European Free Trade Association). The increase from EU and Efta countries was 6.8% while only 0.4% from other countries.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Foreigners have been top of the news this week in Switzerland, from researchers showing that less-educated foreigners pay more rent in cities, to government proposals to tighten rules for obtaining permanent residence and citizenship as well as rules covering applications for refugee status. The government is also proposing tougher measures for foreigners who commit serious crimes.
Foreigners and rent
A paper published by the Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, reports Le Temps (the SSES paper is not available online) shows that some foreigners pay 2.3% more for rent in Geneva and 2.6% more in Zurich than a Swiss person.
