Turkey’s promise to stop the flow of refugees creates a new crisis

Turkey is struggling to cope with the 2.7 million Syrians it hosts, and honor its agreement to stop refugees from crossing into Europe. Meanwhile, renewed fighting in Syria pushes tens of thousands of Syrians closer to the border with Turkey, in a sign that the problem could still get worse.

Turkey is scrambling to create long-term solutions for millions of people it had expected to house temporarily. An analysis released by several think tanks and aid groups in February listed these hurdles for refugees: bureaucracy, unemployment, poor housing conditions and limited access to education. As an example of the bureaucracy, the report noted, “a bank account was required to obtain a residence permit, while a residence permit was required to open a bank account.”

“When people flee from war, they usually do so hoping to return home soon” said Selin Unal, a spokeswoman for the United Nations refugee program in Turkey. “They move nearby, like just across the border, where they can keep an eye on their homes and livelihoods.”

Most Syrian refugees in Turkey are living along the southeastern border with Syria. But more than one million people are spread throughout the country, in cities and in rural areas. Istanbul alone has nearly 400,000 registered Syrians, according to the Turkish government.

Of the 700,000 school-age Syrian children in Turkey, fewer than half are enrolled. The Turkish government is developing a plan to try to close the gap, including creating schools that will employ Syrian teachers and teach in Arabic.

“After living day to day for five years, many migrants and refugees want to plan for the future, and this means being able to provide for their families themselves,” said Abby Dwommoh, a spokeswoman for the International Organization for Migration in Turkey.

[New York Times]

Red Cross says Afghanistan facing its worst humanitarian crisis since war began

The crisis in Afghanistan has escalated to a new level of urgency, the outgoing head of the International Red Cross said Sunday, citing a record number of civilian casualties and evacuations of war wounded.

In an interview with The Telegraph, Jean-Nicolas Marti said the drawdown of NATO forces has led to a rise in fighting.

The Red Cross says the number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan hit a record high for the seventh consecutive year in 2015, with more than 11,000 innocent men, women and children killed or wounded, Reuters reports.

Marti told The Telegraph that in 2015, the number of war wounded grew by 30 percent from the year before. The 2016 total is expected to exceed the 2015 figure before the summer “fighting season” begins.

Meanwhile, Afghans make up the second largest group of refugees and migrants arriving in Europe behind Syrians, as an estimated one million people have been displaced in the conflict, Reuters reports.

[Fox News]

Three million lack permanent shelter a year after Nepal earthquake

A year after Nepal was devastated in an earthquake, 3 million people are still without permanent shelter and some marginalized groups have missed out on vital relief.

Aid agency Save the Children says about 600,000 families in Nepal continue to live under tarpaulins, bridges and in unsafe buildings in the wake of the magnitude 7.8 quake which hit on April 25 last year. Almost 9000 people were killed in the disaster and about 900,000 homes destroyed or damaged.

The scale of the disaster and logistical problems caused by Nepal’s mountainous terrain and limited road infrastructure have made relief and rehabilitation difficult. Surveys taken during the relief phase found two-thirds of quake victims did not have the information need to get relief and 61 per cent “thought aid was not being provided fairly”, the report said.

Save the Children country director Delailah Borja said, “No formal rebuilding program has commenced in the past 12 months, and that’s in part due to the sheer scale of the disaster and the massive logistical challenges in an extremely mountainous region. Millions of families are still living in the temporary shelter supplied by aid agencies months ago, having already braved a very cold winter and are now facing the prospect of another monsoon season, which will start in June.”

[The Age]

Ecuador earthquake aid

A 7.8-magnitude quake, which struck Ecuador Saturday night, has killed at least 413 people, officials said Monday. More than 2,500 more were injured.

The hardest-hit area of the South American nation was the coastal Manabi Province, where about 200 people died, said Ricardo Peñaherrera of Ecuador’s national emergency management office.

Getting supplies and rescue crews to the affected areas has been a challenge. “The lack of water and communication remains a big problem,” Peñaherrera told CNN en Español. “Many highways are in bad shape, especially in the mountainous area, because it has been raining recently due to the El Niño weather phenomenon.”

Mexico, Spain, Colombia, Chile, Venezuela, Peru and other countries sent rescuers and aid. The European Union said Monday it had released €1 million in humanitarian aid. The United Nations said it was preparing a “major aid airlift,” and private aid organizations have also rallied.

Iraq’s humanitarian workers brace for Mosul influx

A military operation to recapture Mosul from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group could produce the largest civilian displacement anywhere in the world this year, according to the United Nations — and critics say the UN and Kurdish authorities are unprepared for the influx.

Kurdish authorities, already caring for more than one million displaced people, are reluctant to allow more displaced people into areas under their control, amid concerns about possible infiltration by ISIL sympathizers.

An eventual assault on Mosul could displace more than one million more people, according to UN estimates.

“Even by our most conservative estimates, this could be the largest population movement anywhere in the world this year,” Lise Grande, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, told Al Jazeera.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has vowed that this will be the year Iraqi forces retake Mosul. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is expecting to receive between 300,000 and 500,000 displaced people from Mosul.

A third of Iraq’s 3.4 million displaced people have taken refuge in Kurdish areas, increasing the region’s population by nearly 30 percent, the highest ratio anywhere in the world. The World Bank estimates the displacement crisis cost the KRG $1.4bn in 2015, at a time when its economy was experiencing severe recession.

Both the Kurds and the UN say humanitarian funding is grossly lacking. So far, donors have pledged just $75m of the $861m that the UN has asked for in Iraq this year.

[Al Jazeera]

Pope Francis shows solidarity with refugees in Lesbos

At a ceremony in the Greek island of Lesbos, Pope Francis said he understood Europe’s concern about the recent migrant influx. But he said migrants are first of all human beings “who have faces, names and individual stories” and deserve to have their most basic human rights respected.

During the Pope’s visit, Francis, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I and the archbishop of Athens, Ieronymos II, signed a joint declaration calling on the international community to make the protection of human lives a priority and to extend temporary asylum to those in need.

In his remarks to the refugees, Francis said, “We hope that the world will heed these scenes of tragic and indeed desperate need, and respond in a way worthy of our common humanity,” he said. “May all our brothers and sisters on this continent, like the Good Samaritan, come to your aid in the spirit of fraternity, solidarity and respect for human dignity that has distinguished its long history.”

Human rights groups have denounced the EU-Turkey deportation deal as an abdication of Europe’s obligation to grant protection to asylum-seekers. The March 18 deal stipulates that anyone arriving clandestinely on Greek islands on or after March 20 will be returned to Turkey unless they successfully apply for asylum in Greece. For every Syrian sent back, the EU will take another Syrian directly from Turkey for resettlement in Europe. In return, Turkey was granted billions of euros to deal with the more than 2.7 million Syrian refugees living there and promised that its stalled accession talks with the EU would speed up.

Making sure not to violate the deal, the Vatican said 12 Syrians coming to Italy with the pope had been in Lesbos prior to March 20, and thus were not subject to possible deportation.

“The world will be judged by the way it has treated you,” Bartholomew told the refugees. “And we will all be accountable for the way we respond to the crisis and conflict in the regions that you come from.”

[Yahoo News]

Iraq may soon reach a ‘point beyond repair’

The vulnerability of internally-displaced people (IDPs) in Iraq has reached boiling point, with the situation aggravated by ongoing armed conflict. If diverse ethnic communities fail to co-exist, Iraq may soon be “beyond repair,” a new report warns.

There are currently 3.2 million IDPs in Iraq, which is in the middle of a war with Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL). IDPs originating from Anbar – the Sunni heartland of Iraq – comprise the largest group of displaced people in Iraq. The Iraqi capital, Baghdad, hosts the second largest IDP population of nearly 600,000 persons.

More than 8 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, the report from the Minority Rights Group International and partner charity Ceasefire Center for Civilian Rights has stated.

Protection of IDPs in Iraq has become next to impossible due to the “collapse of the rule of law, widespread impunity, territorial or tribal disputes and the inability or sometimes unwillingness of the Iraqi government and the Regional Government of Kurdistan to respond to the sheer scale of the crises,” the report noted. “If communities are unable to co-exist, Iraq may soon reach a point beyond repair,” it added.

IDPs originating from Anbar – the Sunni heartland of Iraq – comprise the largest group of displaced people in Iraq. The Iraqi capital, Baghdad, hosts the second largest IDP population of nearly 600,000 persons.

“Unless a coherent strategy for return and reconciliation is put in place, the possibility of a democratic, multicultural Iraq will be gone within the next few years,” the executive director of the Minority Rights Group International Mark Lattimer added.

[RT]