Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Two Geneva-based UN organizations, the International Organization for Migration and the UNHCR (High Commissioner for Refugees) say that refugees from Myanmar/Burma have been pouring into Thailand in the wake of Myanmar elections Sunday 7 November. The elections have been widely denounced by other countries as fraudulent, with citizens not having the freedom to vote correctly. Fighting has broken out in some areas.
The IOM says that “the fighting between the Myanmar military and an ethnic minority armed group, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), following the Myanmar elections on Sunday, resulted in an estimated 12,000 people fleeing into Thailand at the Mae Sot and Three Pagoda Pass border crossing points. In Mae Sot [the IOM Monday] transported some 5,000 people from the Thai side of the Moei River to a safe former military compound designated by the Thai authorities. All the refugees came from the town of Miwaddy on the Myanmar side of the river.”
The Mae Sot refugee camp is designed to hold a maximum of 2,000 people.
The UNHCR says in addition to the Mae Sot area people it worked early this week with some 3,000 refugees in Kanchanaburi province, west of Bangkok, at a school at Three Pagodas Pass.
UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie visited Myanmar refugees in Thailand in March 2009 to draw attention to their plight: some have been living in refugee camps for over 20 years. New fighting in Myanmar is straining the existing camps (video link below)
UNHCR provides a first-hand description of the scramble by international organizations, working together Monday, to cope with the sudden influx of refugees in Thailand:
“Refugees started pouring across the border early in the morning on foot and on inner tubes across the Moei River. Some told our staff they felt their lives were at risk after their houses were attacked, while others said they fled the sound of fighting.
“Local people have been pitching in as well, and we have asked that they co-ordinate their efforts with us to make sure that those who are most in need get helped first. One man delivered 1,000 blankets to the new site, which we plan to distribute today to the most vulnerable.”
“Many collected their children from school and fled to Thailand with only the clothes on their back, some even barefoot.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A fight broke out about 10:30 Sunday morning 7 November between Georgians and Africans at the Lagnon refugee residential centre on the route des Blanchards in Onex.
The two groups battled with scissors, knives and metal bars, injuring 11 people, 7 of whom were sent to hospital emergency rooms for treatment. At least one is reported to be in serious condition.
Police in Geneva say the cause of the fight is not yet known. Nine police patrols, a medical unit of 16 people and six ambulances were called to end the fight and treat the injured.
Alixandra Fazzina received the Nansen Refugee Award in Geneva
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - British photojournalist Alixandra Fazzina received last night the prestigious Nansen Refugee Award for her work documenting the lives of refugees worldwide.
UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres presented Fazzina with the award in a ceremony held at the Batiment des Forces Motrices in Geneva on 5 October.
“I see myself really as a storyteller, my aim is to always put a human face on the plight of refugees and IDPs [internally displaced people] around the world, in order to raise awareness and increase understanding,” said the 36-year-old photojournalist.
Fazzina began her photojournalism career following the British Army in Bosnia for two years. She spent two years in Somalia chronicling the exodus of migrants and refugees to the Arabian Peninsula and the smuggling business in the Gulf of Aden.
Asia’s first refugee resettlement programme underway
Karen mother and daughter, newly arrived at Mae Ra Ma Luang refugee camp near the Thai-Myanmar/Burma border (photo ©2010 UNHCR / J Redfern)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Three families who have spent 25 years in the Mae La camp in northern Thailand have landed near Tokyo, Japan, where they are being resettled as refugees, the first in Asia’s new refugee resettlement programme. UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) in Geneva announced that the 18 people, two couples and their children ages 3-15, will soon be joined by another two families who had to stay behind in Bangkok because they had come down with the flu.
The families are farmers from the Karen ethnic minority in Myanmar/Burma.
Japan says it will accept up to 90 refugees over three years. The families will be settled in Tokyo, given apartments, language lessons, vocational training and help in finding jobs. Two more groups of refugees will be accepted by Japan in one and two years.
Greece: A wet grave waits many of the migrants and refugees who try to join the European Eldorado by crossing the Evros river. Left to their destiny by those who smuggle them across this 200-plus km long waterway that separates Greece and Turkey, panic and darkness are often fatal to those who cannot swim. On a day in May 2010, the bodies of three young Africans were pulled out of the current by Greek policemen. (photo: UNHCR / J Bjoergvinsson)
Update 11:15 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) - Sixteen people, who appear to have been mainly Somalis, drowned 29 June while crossing the Evros River between Turkey and Greece, according to UNHCR. It is the second accident in the same area in a month: in late May three young people died while attempting to cross in the same area.
There has been a three-fold increase in “irregular” arrivals in the European Union via Greece, through the Evros River, in 2010 compared to the same period in 2009, according to the UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees).
Arrivals through the Eastern Aegean islands have considerably decreased says the Geneva-based UN group: available statistics show that at least 287 people lost their lives trying to reach the EU in 2009.
“Sixteen people lost their lives because they felt they had no other option than to enter the EU through the clandestine services of smugglers,” notes Giorgos Tsarbopoulos, head of the UNHCR office in Greece.
“We have every reason to believe that the majority had a legitimate need to seek international protection in the EU. This tragic incident highlights the need for states to protect people at sea and crossing rivers, regardless of their motivation for doing so.”
The death toll reportedly rose to 170 in Kyrgystan Tuesday 15 June, and the number of injured is over 1,200, as ethnic unrest continues. Uzbekistan closed its border. The ICRC (International Red Cross) says that some 80,000 refugees have now fled the area around Osh, in the south of the country. The fighting is the worst since 1990, reports CNN, when clashes killed several hundred people.
Refugees were sent back to Libya by Italy after they were rescued at sea in Malta's search-and-rescue waters in May 2010. Here, the exhausted refugees wait to hear their fate, in Tripoli (photo, M Alwash/UNHCR)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) has been told to close its office in Libya and cease all operations in Libya, the Geneva-based organization said Tuesday 8 June. No explanation has been given for the move, but it follows a weekend incident concerning a group of mainly Eritrean refugees who left Libya by boat and whose sinking craft was intercepted by Libyan vessels inside Malta’s search-and-rescue zone.
The organization has been critical several times in the past two years of rescue operations in the region, where Italy, Malta and Libya have disputed who is responsible for picking up boat people in distress.
The UNHCR has been operating in Libya since 1991, at the request of the government. It helps thousands of refugees in Libya, which, it says, has no refugee programme of its own and who continue to arrive in large numbers. They are mainly Palestinians and Iraqis, with others coming from Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, Liberia and Ethiopia, according to the UNHCR, which says it hopes the closure will be temporary.
Tuesday the UN organization’s spokesperson Melissa Fleming described the boat incident as follows:
Distress calls were received on Sunday evening, including by UNHCR, and passed to Maltese and Italian maritime authorities. It is unclear which country had search-and-rescue responsibility when the distress calls were first sent. According to information made available to UNHCR, the boat was only rescued late on Monday, and by Libyan vessels.
UNHCR in Geneva says situation dire, Swiss government issues travel black list
Bern / Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss government Wednesday morning 13 May approved an embargo against Somalia, stopping military exports and freezing assets, as well as issuing a black list banning travel to Switzerland of those on the list. The move comes in reaction to a rapidly deteriorating political situation in Somalia, with the UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) issuing an urgent message from Geneva Wednesday morning.
In Geneva the UNHCR launched an urgent appeal for an additional $60,000 to handle a refugee situation that could quickly escalate.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Nigerian ambassador Martin Uhomoibhi and Swiss Migration Office director Alard du Bois-Reymond met in Geneva for an hour 29 April, a meeting organized by the Swiss Mission to the United Nations in Geneva, reports swissinfo. The meeting was reportedly an informal discussion on asylum issues. “Alard du Bois-Reymond had irritated Nigerian authorities with remarks about Nigerians making a high number of unjustified asylum requests,” notes the Swiss public broadcast web site.
Background, GenevaLunch feature
UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres and his new deputy, Alexander Aleinikoff in Geneva (photo: /UNHCR)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – António Guterres has been given a mandate to continue heading the UNHCR (UN refugees organization) for the next five years, at the end of a first five-year term. He pointed out in accepting the new assignment that the world of refugees has undergone many changes since he took office as the organization’s director-general: the number of people under UNHCR’s care has grown to 35 million and three million people have been helped to return home voluntarily.
Hefty 99.5 percent Nigerians have no chance of staying in Switzerland, says new director
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Alard du Bois-Reymond, director of Switzerland’s Office for Migration, has been on the job only since 1 January 2010, but if remarks he made to Swiss-German media over the weekend are a sign of what is to come, tensions over the country’s refugees policy could rise. The director told NZZ newspaper that his office will be setting up a task force which will bring together federal and cantonal offices to resolve what he referred to as Switzerland’s number one migration problem: Nigerians, the majority of whom are involved in petty crime and drug trafficking, he says.
“These people aren’t coming to Switzerland as refugees, but to make money”, he told NZZ, noting that 99.5 percent of Nigerians have no chance of being allowed to stay in the country.
His remarks prompted numerous negative reactions ranging from outrage to wonder that the head of a government office would stigmatize another nationality. Even populist media such as Le Matin went out of their way to point out that not all Nigerians are criminals, which du Bois-Reymond appeared to imply, interviewing asylum-seekers from Nigeria to tell their stories.
The Nigerian dilemma a complex one
Du Bois-Reymond’s comments may have been aimed at reassuring conservative elements in Swiss politics about reducing the number of illegal immigrants and reducing crime, several observers told GenevaLunch, but they have stirred up a complex debate.
Beat Meiner, secretary general of Osar (Swiss Refugee Council) says that while crime appears to be a problem, and that has to be dealt with, it’s also a a problem if the Swiss Migration Office lumps together as criminals all Nigerian refugee-seekers. “What we don’t feel is correct is to say that all Nigerians are criminals – but I don’t know if that’s what he really meant. There are, of course, plenty of Nigerians who came here legally, work here, have families, and now they are part of a stigmatized group.”
Blanket associations between asylum seekers and crime: cause for concern says UNHCR
Susin Park, the head of UNHCR’s (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) office for Switzerland and Liechtenstein, says the UN organization is aware that a large number of Nigerian applicants for asylum in Switzerland have been found not to be in need of international protection.
Urban refugees, Colombia (photo 2009, Zalmai/UNHCR)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The number of asylum-seekers worldwide remained stable in 2009, UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) said Tuesday 23 March. “The notion that there is a flood of asylum-seekers into richer countries is a myth,” said António Guterres, director-general. “Despite what some populists claim, our data shows that the numbers have remained stable.”
The number has remained stable at 377,000 worldwide, but there have been significant changes within regions.
“The number of asylum applications increased in 19 of the countries and fell in the other 25 under review,” according to a UNHCR press release.
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.
