Tunisia, Egypt keep borders open as their citizens rush to provide aid
International funds needed to ease pressure on Libya’s neighbours
Update 08:40 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Humanitarian agencies based in Geneva are reporting massive numbers of refugees fleeing Libya over the weekend as they step up emergency aid. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other world leaders flew into Geneva Sunday for a special session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Monday.
Switzerland has sent two of its Rapid Intervention teams to the Tunisian and Egyptian borders with Libya to assess the situation. “The humanitarian situation in Libya and the border areas is precarious,” the Swiss federal government said late Sunday in a statement. “It is difficult at the moment, however, to evaluate the extent of the problem.”
Tunisia Saturday told United Nations’ HCR, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, that 100,000 people had crossed the border from 20-26 February and another 10,000 were expected Saturday: 18,000 are Tunisian, 15,000 Egyptian, 2,500 Libyan and 2,000 Chinese, according to UNHCR.
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ICRC deliveries, video
Egypt has had 55,000 people cross its border with Libya since 19 February: 46,000 Egyptians, 2,100 Libyans and 6,900 third country nationals, mainly from Asian countries.
The two nations, which have both deposed their rulers in recent weeks, are desperately in need of emergency aid to cope with the influxes, say the organizations, which are appealing for generous help from other countries.
Red Cross and Red Crescent funds appeal launched
The International Red Cross, ICRC, launched an emergency funds appeal Friday night, “launched a preliminary emergency appeal for 6 million Swiss francs ($6.4 million/€4.7 million) to meet the emergency needs of people affected by the violent unrest in Libya.”
African refugees treated with distrust in Libya because of mercenary rumours
UNHCR reports that its staff have “met with Libyan police and military who said that they had defected from Government forces and were now working directly with local committees of tribal leaders. The police arranged for UNHCR to meet with tribal leaders, who highlighted the need for humanitarian assistance, with a critical shortage of food throughout the eastern region, as well as shortages of some medical supplies.
“According to the tribal leaders, Africans are being treated with suspicion in eastern Libya, due to rumours about the Government employing mercenaries from sub-Saharan Africa. During the meeting UNHCR staff highlighted the fact that thousands of refugees from sub-Saharan Africa are in Libya, and are very vulnerable at this time. The tribal leaders promised to pass this information on to their communities.”
Tunisians, Egyptians: “ordinary citizens” respond to the crisis
Ayman Gharabeih, a senior emergency specialist with UNHCR at the Ras Adjir border with Libya, is working closely with the Tunisian Red Crescent. “It is impressive to see how quickly the government, the Red Crescent and ordinary citizens have responded to this crisis,” he says, noting that according to the Tunisian Red Crescent “Tunisians are driving from far and wide to bring food, blankets and to offer people a safe place to stay.”
ICRC’s Georgios Georgantas, is in charge of coordinating International Red Cross relief efforts in Libya and neighbouring countries at the organization’s headquarters in Geneva, says “our colleagues in Tunisia tell us that the arrival of tens of thousands of displaced people along the border is putting a strain on local infrastructure and that the need for basic services, such as sanitation facilities, is likely to increase as the numbers continue to rise.”
Sunday afternoon, ICRC staff in Egypt were reporting that the situation along the border there was calm, according to Georgantas, in an ICRC statement.
The BBC early Monday qualified the border situation as a “crisis” but, while the numbers leaving Libya are dramatic, reports of numbers of people stranded vary the UNHCR’s Sunday 27 February figure of 75 sent in a statement Sunday 27 February to the BBC’s quote from an unnamed source at a UN refugee agency that “20,000 Egyptians were stranded and needed food and shelter.”
Simon Brooks, the ICRC’s team leader in Benghazi, said Sunday, “We hear that surgeons and orthopaedic specialists are needed in Benghazi’s hospitals, as well as medicine for patients suffering from chronic illnesses. Our initial assessment is that there is no urgent need for food supplies. It’s difficult to know, however, what the needs are outside the city.”
First 4,600 of 30,000 Chinese evacuated, citing threats and violence towards them
Libyan rights group in Geneva reports wounded in hospitals have been executed
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Tunisians have been streaming over the border from Libya as violence there continues, joined by growing numbers of people from other countries, reports the Geneva-based International Organization for Migration (IOM) Thursday 24 February. The group has voiced concerns about the very few sub-Saharan Africans or Asians leaving Libya, despite the large number employed there, saying it fears for their safety.
The UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) says Tunisia and Egypt have both agreed to keep their borders open to people fleeing the violence in Libya. It is working with the Ministry of Defense in Tunisia to set up a camp for the 10,000 people expected to cross the border this weekend.
China announced Thursday evening that 4,600 Chinese have been evacuated from Libya, the largest evacuation ever by Chinese authorities, and the start of efforts to get some 30,000 Chinese nationals “out of the riot-torn country”. Xinhua, the government news agency, quotes one of the first workers who arrived Thursday morning in Shanghai, Xie Guangfu, as saying “‘The situation is very critical there. People broke into houses, threatening and robbing us with knives and guns.’”
The IOM in Geneva says that 6,700 Tunisians have fled across the Ras Adjir border point in three days and large numbers of Egyptian and Chinese migrant workers arrived at the border Tuesday night. “Some 850 Egyptians are today travelling onwards to Djerba airport accompanied by IOM staff and Red Crescent volunteers. Two planes sent by the Egyptian government will transport them home,” the IOM said in a statement.
Some 830 Chinese workers arrived on buses rented by the Chinese consulate in Tripoli, and from there they were taken to Tunis.
“IOM staff say that those arriving at the border are mainly coming from Tripoli. They include embassy staff and the ambassadors of various countries, who have decided to quit the capital. But they are concerned that there is no evidence of large numbers of migrant workers from Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia leaving Libya for either Tunisia or Egypt.
“Large numbers of Sub-Saharan irregular migrants in Libya work informally in the service sector or as manual labour. Poorly paid and in irregular work, it is unlikely they have the resources to rent vehicles to get to border areas and reach safety. ‘Of the tens of thousands of Sub-Saharan Africans and South Asians working in Libya, only a handful have managed to reach the border so far. This is probably because they do not have the resources to pay for transport,’ says Laurence Hart, IOM’s Chief of Mission for Libya.”
Hospital executions in Tripoli, says human rights group
Geneva newspaper Le Temps reports Thursday evening that the Libyan Human Rights League, based in Geneva because of a ban on independent organizations, has received information that protesters who were taken to hospitals in Libya with injuries have been executed and doctors who object are being threatened.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The numbers of refugees fleeing to five neighbouring countries from Côte d’Ivoire continue to swell as the unresolved political crisis drags on following the December presidential election standoff. The International Organization for Migration reports that “nearly 82,000 people have either been displaced within or outside of Côte d’Ivoire since the crisis began though it is very likely that the true figure is higher.”
Refugees from Cote d'Ivoire registering 3 January 2011 with UNHCR in Liberia (©2011 UNHCR / F. Lejeune-Kaba )
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Refugees continue to cross into Liberia from troubled Côte d’Ivoire at the rate of 600 a day. Liberia is now hosting some 25,000 refugees, according to Geneva-based UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees), which announced 11 January that it is building a new camp in the eastern Liberian town of Bahn. The new camp will house 18,000 people and will provide health, sanitation, water and schooling to ease pressue on 23 border villages currently taking in thd refugees.
UNHCR is clearing 80 hectares of jungle provided by the Liberian government, for the new camp.
The Côte d’Ivoirians are fleeing in the face of unrest and an uncertain future, with the two main candidates in the December 2010 presidential election, Alassane Ouattara and Laurent Gbagbo. each continuing to claim victory.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The number of refugees fleeing Côte d’Ivoire into neighbouring Liberia had risen to over 19,000 by late Tuesday 28 December, reports Geneva-based UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees). The organization says 15, 120 refugees have been recorded, with another 4,000 reported as having arrived in Nimba Country in eastern Liberia. The refugees, notes UNHCR, are a mixed group of supporters of both Alassane Ouattara and Laurent Gbagbo, both of whom claim to have won the recent presidential election in the country. They have told UNHCR they fled “due to fear that the political deadlock might lead to civil war.”
The refugee organization says it has enough supplies in the region to help 30,000 people.
AllAfrica reports 29 December that a three-vehicle convoy of Unoci, the UN peacekeeping mission in Côte d’Ivoire, was attacked near Abidjan, and one soldier was struck by a machete before defense forces intervened. The UN envoy to the region is meeting Wednesday with three African presidents who are visiting the country to meet with Laurent Gbagbo to convince him to step down. Ouattara has been recognized as the victor by the UN and, reports, allAfrica, the “Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), who met in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, on Friday and recognized Mr Ouattara as the duly elected president, while demanding that Mr Gbagbo relinquish power.”
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The question of UNHCR help for what Russia refers to as Georgian refugees in Abkhazia, the break-away Georgian republic, is on the agenda in Geneva 16 December, with the 14th round of talks on security in the Georgia-South Ossettia region underway. Ria Novosti reports that “The former Georgian republic of Abkhazia will press for the UN to register Georgian refugees on its territory at security talks in Geneva, the delegation’s chief Vyacheslav Chirikba said on Wednesday,” noting that Georgia has repeatedly blocked attempts by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to register up to 60,000 refugees in Abkhazia.”
Geneva-based UNHCR in June 2010 published a report on the precarious situation in Abkhazia two years after the war ended. The area was the focus of a new approach to aid and fundraising by UNHCR in 2008, with UNHCR providing basic aid for 45,000 refugees at the time, and seeking to provide more aid.
6oth birthday for UNHCR says stateless, displaced are 21st c challenges
The UNHCR has offered the world a magnificent gift as part of its 6oth anniversary: a collection of some of its finest photos showing refugees from around the world, 1950-2010. The complete collection can be viewed on GenevaLunch
Refugees from Kosovo in F.Y.R Macedonia, 1999 (photo ©2010, UNHCR / R LeMoyne)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Sixty years ago today, 14 December 1950, the United Nations General Assembly voted into being a refugee agency, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, to deal with the refugee situation in Europe in the aftermath of the second world war. It opened its doors in Geneva in January 1951.
Its first major international emergency, taking it beyond the original mandate, came in 1956, as thousands fled when Soviet forces crushed the Hungarian Revolution.
Vietnamese boat people, 1978 (photo ©2010, UNHCR / K Gaugler)
The work of the organization has changed to keep pace with the times: in the 1960s, the decolonization of Africa produced “the first of that continent’s numerous refugee crises needing UNHCR intervention,” the Geneva-based group notes in a statement issued for the anniversary. “Over the following two decades, UNHCR had to help with displacement crises in Asia and Latin America. Today it deals with major displacement situations around the world. The global population of refugees, internally displaced people, and asylum seekers stands at 43 million people, most of them under UNHCR’s duty of care.” The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded twice to the UNHCR, in 1954 and 1981.
Largest-ever single pledge session as refugee group increases internally displaced and stateless refugees work
UNHCR said in July 2010 that 16 people had died trying to cross the Evros River, with the border between Greece and Turkey a popular but treacherous transit spot (photo, ©2010 UNHCR)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, celebrates its 60th anniversary 14 December 2010, with words of thanks from High Commissioner Guterres, who recently told a group of donors, mainly governments, that “taking into account the global economic and financial situation [this] is I believe a very clear demonstration of your support and your commitment.” He also called on them to redress the balance, with poor countries bearing too much of the burden of helping refugees, and many countries not doing enough to deal with statelessness problems.
Europe, in particular, was warned Friday 10 December not to make asylum more difficult in its efforts to stop illegal migration: UNHCR figures show a 72.5 percent drop in arrivals by sea in the Mediterranean during the first 10 months of 2010, compared to the same period in 2009, down from 32,000 to 8,800, with Italy, Greece, Cyprus, and Malta all seeing sharp drops.
“Our concern is that in its efforts to stem illegal migration, Europe should not forget that among those seeking to enter the EU are people who need international protection and are at risk of their lives,” spokesperson Andrej Mahecic says. “Europe is a destination for both migrants and asylum seekers. The two have different goals and needs. Migrants may be seeking employment or other economic opportunities, refugees are people fleeing persecution or violence. They cannot return home if things don’t work out.”
$3.32 billion needed to meet 2011 needs, says refugee agency
The appeal to Europeans follows news from UNHCR 7 December that it had received pledges of $576.5 million, the highest amount contributed through a single pledging session, which represents 17.3 percent of UNHCR’s $3.32 billion projected requirement for 2011.
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.
UNHCR headquarters Geneva. Photo © 2010 UNHCR / S. Hopper
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The US Supreme Court has refused to hear a case of sexual harassment involving the former UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud Lubbers and a UNHCR employee. The court’s ruling 4 October means that a lower court verdict that invoked the UN offical’s diplomatic immunity stands.
Lubbers, a former prime minister of the Netherlands, was accused by Cynthia Brzak, a UNHCR employee who claimed she was indecently assaulted by Lubbers in his offices in Geneva in 2003. An internal inquiry recommended he be disciplined, but Kofi Annan, UN Secretary-General at the time, refused to pursue the issue. Lubbers resigned in 2005 over the scandal and has always denied the accusations.
Edward Flaherty, the Geneva-based lawyer defending Brzak and another UNHCR employee, Nasr Ishak in the case against the international organization, told GenevaLunch that they have “reached the end of the road with the UN”, and continue to be subject to “harassment and retaliation” by their employer.
Refugee in Brazil in touch with family. © 2010 UNHCR
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Refugees will now have the possibility to initiate searches for their loved ones scattered by conflict or disaster using a simple mobile phone. The service is anonymous, free and secure. It was launched as a pilot project in Uganda 3 September, and 500 users have already registered to use it in the first four days.
Danish NGO Refugees United, which designed a web-based family tracing platform for refugees, has partnered with Geneva-based UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), mobile phone maker Ericsson, and MTN, Africa’s largest mobile phone operator, to make the tracing service available to refugees with access to a mobile phone.
Christopher Mikkelsen, who founded and now runs Refugees United with his brother David, told GenevaLunch that while the web-based platform is used by about 4,000 refugees to search for missing family members, the availability of internet access in Africa is low, but mobile phone penetration is almost 50 percent. He says that 75-80 percent of refugees have access to a mobile phone in Africa and can use the service. The project promises to go global at the end of the month.
“For the first time, refugees themselves are drawn into the equation to trace family members”, he says, paving the way for “the bottom of the pyramid” to take charge of their lives. The platform is open, and users decide just how much information they wish to share. Typically, traces are made based on nicknames, birthmarks or other distinguishing features that only a family member would recognize.
Angelina Jolie, UNHCR ambassador, meets with villagers hit by Pakistan floods, 7 September 2010 (photo: ©2010 UNHCR / J Tanner)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Celebrity actress Angelina Jolie is making a strong appeal to the public not to forget about Pakistan’s millions of flood victims as the waters recede.
She is touring the country, for the fourth time since 2001, in her role as a UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) goodwill ambassador.
“It’s clear this crisis is far from over,” says Jolie. “People have lost everything: their homes, their belongings, their crops and cattle, and their livelihoods. Long after the cameras have gone, people will be struggling to rebuild their lives.”
Angelina Jolie, UNHCR ambassador, visiting KandaroII Camp in Nowshera, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, 7 September 2010 (photo: ©2010 UNHCR / J Tanner)
Tuesday September 7 she met people who had been directly affected by the floods. She visited Mohib Banda, where some 70 per cent of the homes were destroyed or badly damaged by the swirling waters.”
“There was a small stream outside the broken homes. It was full of a mix of faeces, flies, old shoes and old clothes that had been recently washed into the water,” she noted.
Pakistan/ Floods/ A young Afghan boy stands next to his home damaged by flash floods in the Hazijai Afghan refugee village in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province (photo: ©2010 UNHCR / R Ali
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – One-fifth of Pakistan is under water and while floodwaters are receding in some places, the need for basic shelter in flooded areas in Pakistan has become critical, say Geneva-based humanitarian organizations, who are launching appeals for more public support. International Office for Migration (IOM) Director General William Lacy Swing, who has been visiting the area, says “these floods are one of the most extreme humanitarian disasters in living memory.”
The flooding is causing enormous displacement problems in Pakistan as well as in neighbouring Afghanistan, where the number of returning refugees is growing rapidly.
Appeal triples in size to US$120 million
The UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) issued a broadcast appeal late Tuesday 30 August, featuring its Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie. That UN agency says that “with nearly 20 million people estimated to have been affected, the needs of the victims are outpacing the ability of humanitarian organizations to provide assistance. Last week UNHCR revised upwards its global appeal for the Pakistan flood operation to US$120 million from US$41 million.”
Young Afghan boy stands next to his home damaged by flash floods in the Hazijai Afghan refugee village in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province (photo ©2010 UNHCR / R. Ali)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees in Pakistan are victims of the recent catastrophic flooding that has affected large swathes of Pakistan, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which notes that the refugees’ evacuation from their settlements has opened a debate concerning the land the villages are built on.
“Dozens of Afghan refugee villages have been damaged, and several are completely destroyed. In Khyber Pakhtunkwa province (PDF map) alone, more than 12,000 dwellings in refugee villages have been swept away leaving almost 70,000 people homeless,” reports UNHCR.
The Geneva-based UN group says it has the agreement of the relevant government ministries that refugees will be resettled in their villages and says it hopes “that moves by land speculators are stymied.”
Displaced Afghan refugee Gul Hassan is taking refuge on a road side near Hajizai Afghan refugee village which was destroyed by recent floods; August 2010 (photo ©2010 UNHCR / R. Ali)
Pakistan is home to 1.7 million Afghan refugees, many of whom have been in the country since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. When the settlements were built they were often on the edges of towns; now towns and cities have grown, and the land has become more valuable. In March, the government and UNHCR signed an agreement on extending the refugees’ permission to stay until end 2012.
UNHCR has seen its mandate extended as a result of the extreme flooding in Pakistan. It is one of only a few international agencies in the remoter areas of the country and has been in the lead in providing help to Pakistanis whose homes have been devastated by the waters.
Up to 20 million Pakistanis may have been affected by the flooding, more rains are on the way, with another month to go in the official monsoon season, and the government is struggling to cope with the extent of the disaster.
Links to other sites: Alertnet, Dawn, The Nation, UNHCR, UNOSAT and Reuters AlertNet map of recent flood damaged areas
(video) Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) – International organizations based in Geneva continue to send out urgent messages about the desperate state of humanitarian affairs in Pakistan, where more than 20 million people have been affected by flooding, and the rains continue to worsen the situation. Swiss Solidarity (La Chaîne du Bonheur in French), for its part, is holding a major fundraising appeal today, 18 August, to raise money for several aid groups who are working in Pakistan. Donations can be made by phone, 0800 87 07 07, or online.
Also making urgent appeals because current funds won’t cover the cost of the most basic food, water, shelter and medical care needs in Pakistan:
WHO is providing an overview of the developing health crises in Pakistan. UNHCR is running several human interest stories on their flickr pages, including one about a family that doesn’t even have enough food to break the Ramadan fast that is just starting.
Alixandra Fazzina, winner of the UNHCR Nansen award
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) – British photojournalist Alixandra Fazzina has been named the winner of the Nansen Refugee Award given annually since 1954 by Geneva-based UNHRC (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) to an individual “for outstanding work on behalf of refugees.”
The award carries CHF100,000 donated by the Swiss and Norwegian governments, to be donated to a refugee organization selected by the winner.
Fazzina began her photojournalism career following the British Army in Bosnia for two years, after which she began to record the lives of refugees.
She spent two years in Somalia chronicling the exodus of migrants and refugees from Somalia to the Arabian Peninsula and the smuggling business in the Gulf of Aden. The book which came out of this work will be published in September 2010, A Million Shillings, Escape from Somalia.
UNHCR, on announcing the award, noted that:
Over the last ten years Alixandra Fazzina has tirelessly documented the plight of the uprooted through distinctive and moving photo reportages. Alixandra Fazzina’s work has taken her to Eastern Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia to cover human tragedies often neglected by mainstream media.
The award ceremony takes place in Geneva in October.
A sample of Fazzina’s work, refugees fleeing Somalia in 2007:
Refugees fleeing Somalia (photo ©2010 A Fazinna/UNHCR)
World Refugee Day 2010 poster © UNHCR
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The need for resettlement places for refugees and the capacity of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to process the caseload is falling short by ever greater numbers, says UNHCR in a study published Monday 5 July. The study comes ahead of a three-day meeting between States, NGOs and UNHCR in Geneva on resettlement, 6-8 July.
UNHCR estimates the need for resettlement of refugees at 805,000 people worldwide, which is less than 10 percent of today’s global refugee population. Resettlement of refugees is almost always a last resort, since the preferred solution is voluntary repatriation to their home countries, when possible. Refugees are resettled when first asylum countries are unable to admit them or when the refugees are at risk.
UNHCR also signals that it takes too much time to process its resettlement submissions, while acknowledging that States must undertake security background and medical checks on the refugees submitted for resettlement. It took on average five months between a case submission and final departure; it took seven weeks for the decision to be taken.
New resettlement countries
Since June 2008, 12 countries have signalled their willingness to take in refugees as part of the resettlement program, joining the 12 that were already part of the programme. In all, resettlement countries have offered 80,000 places in 2011, a shortfall of some 92,000.
UNHCR recognizes that the economic downturn has made accepting refugees financially and politically more difficult, as countries concentrate on their own populations, and immigration, both legal and illegal, becomes a touchy political subject in many richer countries.
An Australian example
As Australia’s new Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, reviews her government’s asylum policy, she may decide to return to their home countries hundreds of refugees whose asylum applications have been rejected, but whose appeals are stuck in a bureaucratic limbo. Australia faces a general election in coming months and the issue is being used by all sides of the political spectrum.
Thousands of refugees from Afghanistan and Sri Lanka take to boats each year to reach Australia. In 2010, more than 3,500 people on 75 boats have arrived in Australian waters, compared to 2,726 on 60 boats in 2009. Australia has pledged to take 13,750 refugees in 2010.
Women and girls at risk
UNHCR reserves 10 percent of the resettlement places for women and girls who are at risk. Other categories of refugees include survivors of violence or torture, elderly refugees, and children and adolescents. In 2009, UNHCR submitted more than 38,000 cases comprising 128,560 people for resettlement. Of these, 84,657 departed to live in their new countries.
Links to other sites: Business Week, The Australian, UNHCR
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.”
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) – The UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) in Geneva is sending emergency aid teams to 75,000 Uzbeks who have crossed the border from Kyrgyzstan into Uzbekistan since Friday.
“We have agreed with the Uzbek government to support their efforts and assist tens of thousands, mostly women and children seeking safety in Uzbekistan,” notes UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres. The UNHCR emergency team includes experts on operations, field officers and logistics. It is scheduled to deploy immediately, the organization says in a news release Monday afternoon. The UNHCR is also preparing an airlift from its emergency stockpile in Dubai.
The refugees continue to flee from violence, including men on the loose with hatchets, as ethnic unrest in the area flairs. Georgia’s minister for re-integration, Temur Iakobashvili, called the violence Russian-inspired “ethnic cleansing” of Uzbeks, according to Civil.Ge, a Georgian news media. Aljazeera’s reporter on the border says the fleeing Uzbeks are making claims that are difficult to substantiate, that Kyrgystan’s military are joining in some of the attacks. The country’s interim leader, Roza Otunbayeva, in place since early April, says an outside third party is needed to calm the situation and that she has contacted Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to ask for help.
Al Jazeera video
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.
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.
A Bosnian woman who was displaced from her home during the 1992-1995 war in the country talks to UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, Angelina Jolie, during the actress' visit to a center for displaced in the eastern Bosnian town of Gorazde, 50 kilometres east of Sarajevo (UNHCR/Aziz April 2010)
Geneva, Switzerland / Sarajevo (GenevaLunch) - UNHCR ambassador Angelina Jolie and her companion, fellow actor Brad Pitt, met with internally displaced refugees and UNHCR staff in Bosnia and Herzegovina Monday 5 April, says the Geneva-based organization. Jolie is a frequent visitor to refugee areas as an active ambassador.
Her latest visit, to the Balkans region 14 years after the end of a devastating war there, was designed to “highlight the plight of 113,000 Bosnians displaced from their homes and 7,000 refugees from Croatia, many of whom are living in collective centres, often in appalling conditions,” according to UNHCR. The war, from 1992-95, displaced 2.2 million people.
Jolie met with refugees, but also with UNHCR staff who told her about projects to improve the situation. Resettlement work in the country with a population of four million is hampered by its extremely fragmented political system:
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.
Refugees from Equator province, November 2009, when number reached 100,000 http://www.flickr.com/photos/unhcr/4271338608/ (photo: BB Diallo/UNHCR)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Several United Nations offices appealed Tuesday morning 9 March in Geneva for an urgent infusion of aid money to meet the needs of 110,000 refugees in northern Republic of Congo’s Likouala province. Eighty-two percent are women and children who fled fighting in Democratic Republic of Congo’s Equateur Province. UNHCR is asking for $20 million.
The request is part of a broader appeal by UN agencies, who say they have received only $17.3 million of the nearly $59 million the need for refugees from the Equator region in the country in 2010. Partners in the appeal are: the World Food Programme, Unicef, the World Health Organization, Unesco, the UN Development Programme, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization and the UNFPA.
The refugees fled from Equator province in late October 2009 “when Enyele militiamen launched deadly assaults on ethnic Munzayas over fishing and farming rights in the Dongo area,” the UNHCR says.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Massive mudslides in Uganda, caused by heavy rains in recent days, have taken the lives of more than 50 people, with unverifiable reports coming in that more than 100may have died, with 400 people missing. Searchers are desperately working in heavy rains to free up trapped villages, but there appears little hope of finding more survivors in the rugged mountainous terrain east of the border with Kenya. In Geneva, the UNHCR announced it is organizing an initial stock of tents and plastic sheeting for emergency shelter for 5,000 people. Unicef is also involved in organizing aid.
The emergency in Uganda comes as international aid and humanitarian agencies are still struggling to raise funds and send teams to help in Chile and Haiti after their earthquakes. The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies is appealing for CHF7 million for aid operations in Chile.
AllAfrica reports that efforts to provide aid to the stricken area in Uganda are hampered by lack of transport and the poor weather.
Links to other sites: AllAfrica, Euronews, NPR, Reuters AlertNet
Update 2 13:10 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A New York appeals court in the US has rejected an appeal by Cynthia Brzak and Nazr Ishak, who filed a sexual harassment suit against the former UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers and seven other high UN officials. Their lawyer in Geneva, Edward Flaherty, told Geneva Lunch they will appeal the decision, taking it to the US Supreme Court.
“My clients are disappointed with the Court’s judgment, but it was not unexpected,” Flaherty said in a written statement. “As the retaliation against both of them by officials within both UNHCR and the UN, which retaliation gave rise in part to the original suit, continues unabated through the present date, they have no choice but to seek vindication of their constitutional and other rights before the US Supreme Court. Their aim is to end the impunity exercised by UN officials everywhere who are placed beyond the reach of national laws by the UN’s outdated immunity, both in their own case, and on behalf of the many UN staff who have suffered and continue to suffer illegal and/or criminal acts in the workplace, as they have.”
Lubbers was named High Commissioner in 2001 but retired in 2005 under the shadow of the scandal. The appeals court ruled that Lubbers and the others, as United Nations diplomats, have immunity, in line with a US district court decision in 2007 that UN diplomats are immune under the 1946 Convention on Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations.
The case was heard in the US because Brzak is a US citizen and the incident that provoked the case, accusations that Lubbers improperly touched her during a 2003 meeting, took place in New York. The UNHCR is based in Geneva, where both Brzak and Ishak still work.
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.”
UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres and his new deputy, Alexander Aleinikoff in Geneva (photo: /UNHCR)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Alexander Aleinikoff assumed his post as Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees Monday 1 February.”The work of UNHCR around the world plays a crucial role in the lives of millions of people,” he says. “And I am delighted to be joining the organization.”
Aleinikoff has been a consultant on international protection to the UNHCR in the past, and leaves his current position at Georgetown University, where he was dean of the Law School.
Aleinikoff worked on US President Obama’s transition team as part of the immigration policy review team, and was the general counsel of the Immigration and Naturalization Service in 1994-5.
He takes over from Craig Johnstone.
